Universally, the first day of summer camp includes a swim test. For the safety of everyone the adults needs to know who can swim and who can’t.

Those who can swim can go into the deep end while those who can’t need to learn.

We need to teach our students to swim

As Jon and I began working on the Good News in the Neighborhood curriculum we agreed on a driving principle: Our curriculum cannot be prescriptive. It sickens me that so many curriculums dumb things down to “3 easy steps to application.” I hate the “easy” lie in ministry stuff. As if following Jesus were easy? As if becoming Good News in your neighborhood were going to be easy? It’s not, as we describe in the introduction… if you take the task of walking with Jesus seriously, you’re life will get jacked. 

One of the great failures of the church is the silent driving force of dependency. We’ve made one of the core things we teach that we need to keep coming to church in order to grow. That’s keeping students and adults in the shallow end with their floaties on. So, as the line of reasoning goes, to step into “pseudo maturity” you have to become more and more involved (read dependent) on the ministry of your local church. Whereas, that might be the case for some people– but for the vast majority of people, a sign of maturity would be less dependency on the ministry of the church. Consequently, worship services primary focus has become teaching stuff you’ll never be held accountable to apply instead of celebrating what God is doing in our collective.

The Push

Instead of keeping students in the shallow end and dependent on our teaching we need to push some students into the deep end of the pool. (So we can better invest our time on people who can’t actually swim!) Sometimes, at least in my ministry, I’ve had students who grew up in the church, who won every Awana award, who come from great families. And I want to tell them the truth… the best way for you to mature in your relationship with Jesus is not to be a part of youth group but to apply all of that stuff to your life! You’re competent, now get out.

Conversely, one of the biggest things holding students back is that we let them come back to the shallow end of the pool forever without ever forcing them to apply what they’ve learned. (And what does that say about their parents? Are they hanging out in the shallow end after 30 years of walking with Jesus?)

No more mommies

As we move forward with youth ministry into our next 50 years, I’m hoping we drop the mommy stance. “Oh sweetie, stay in the shallow end as long as you want. Lots of people wear floaties forever.”

Hogwash.

It’s time to kick that stance to the curb. If we really want to see our ministries become Good News in our context… we need to push the people who are ready into the deep end as the most loving thing we can do. Go, swim, let’s celebrate your success in the deep end.

Wanna flip the script? Let’s give them a swim test and if they pass, banish them from the shallow end of the pool for a while.

photo credit: West Point Public Affairs via Flickr (Creative Commons)

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I’m proud to be a part of the youth ministry session of this project with Ginny Olson. Together we talk about ministering to LGBT students in your youth group, creating a safe environment, and bullying.

You can pre-order the DVD curriculum from Amazon here.

A couple Sunday’s ago our senior pastor, Ed Noble, was talking about the inside out revolution underway at Journey. He gave an example about an area of the property where the church used to meet weekly for a big, family dinner. Now that space is used to run a food pantry for families in our community.

It’s not that the big family dinner thing was bad. Quite the opposite. For where the church was at it was just what was needed. A lot of good was done in that room over those meals. The fact that the room is now used for a food pantry is not a more noble use of the space– it’s just a strategy that reflects both the needs of the community and the heart of the congregation and where we are at today.

When Ed gave that example it got me thinking about youth ministry. Because, to oversimplify and generalize, youth ministry is typically a “come and get” kind of thing. (Like the family dinners) Volunteers come to serve students who show up. And the church puts on the program because they feel like it’s ultimately good for the church. It’s good, it’s noble, it serves a purpose.

But what would it look like if we turned our ministries inside out? 

What would it look like if youth ministry in the local church weren’t seen through the lens of “what’s good for the church” and was built around “what’s good for students needs in this community?”

That’s no indictment on how we do ministry or even challenging the assumptions upon which our profession is built.

That’s turning the coin over and asking, “How could this same space, same staff, same budget serve 95% of the population of students in this community alongside of the 5% who currently are engaged?”

If we believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for all students– what should that change what we do?

“The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” We all nod our heads in agreement. But what would it look like for youth ministry to truly embrace that?

Maybe we are just a little too authentic in youth group?

Last night, our high school ministry night met. We were down a couple of adults and up a few students. Actually, the night felt right at that balance between “out-of-control” and “in control” that is some of the secret sauce of youth ministry.

As I struggled to push my table group through a Bible study they clearly weren’t interested in I was feeling a little heart tug in a couple of directions:

• I need to push these students through this study on Psalm 19, this is God’s Word… and David was describing some really cool stuff they need to know.
• I need to pull the plug and call an audible. There’s something serious going on that’s more important than Psalm 19 right now.

Instead, I decided to just let it ride. We half-pushed our way through and half-let them stay easily distracted and unsatisfied. I resisted the urge to either side.

I’ll never know if I did the right thing or the wrong thing. But I do know I came home deflated and frustrated. Again.

Another time, another place

I’ve been thinking a lot about the purpose of Tuesday nights in our group’s life. On the one hand, we want to “keep it real” and be authentically who we are. But my problems aren’t their problems. And my students already deal with more crap than they can work through in a lifetime. So I’m not sure “being authentic” about a lot of stuff is very helpful.

Nearly all of my students have spent some time in foster care. Nearly all of my students have at least one member of family member who struggles with drug addiction. Only 1-2 students have a dad in their lives. More than half have experienced some level of physical or sexual abuse. Most scrape by academically.

At 15 years old most of them have lived a lifetime of grief.

At the same time they deal with all of the normal pressures, temptations, realities, and burdens of being a high school student.

They don’t want to keep it more real. They want to keep it less real.

Maybe instead of dealing with the realities of life… Tuesday night should be an escape from all of that?

When you desperately need a new life “being authentic” just feels like you get dragged back into the quick sand you’ve just escaped.

A little less authenticity replaced with a glimpse of Fantasia?

Maybe Tuesday night would be better if it were kind of an other world experience? A healthy escapism? A place that intentionally disoriented students from their own reality and allowed them to escape to another reality for a night? A place in which at some point, on the way home, they questioned… was that even real?

Maybe youth group should be more of an escape? Sure, one on one or in small groups or in other high trust situations… we can go there and deal with that stuff. But when we gather as a large group I’m questioning the value of creating an authentic experience when a fantasy one is so much more desirable.

For discussion: I’ve used my own group as an example. But the reality is, youth ministry-wide, the pendulum has swung back and forth about youth group nights as a whole, about the youth worker being more authentic with their struggles, about sharing in small groups about life stuff vs. Bible study groups, etc. What do you think? Is it more useful for students to have a place of deep authenticity? Or is it more useful for students to have a place of escape to play, worship, and laugh?

Photo by Simon Abrams via Flickr (Creative Commons)

People are showing up and I have a million things running through my mind.

• Do I have all of my personal stuff?
• Do I have all of the stuff we need that the church needs to bring?
• Are all of my leaders here?
• Did I double check fuel levels? What about oil changes, we good there?
• Which students still need to turn in permission slips?
• And those two students I was trying to convince to go at the last minute, are they going to show?
• Did I print off directions? The other drivers hate it when I forget to do that.
• Don’t forget the orientation before we leave.
• Did I print the flyer for parents? If I don’t write down all of the details they will call me the whole time.
• How will I start a meaningful conversation with someone new on this drive?

These are the myriad of things rattling through my brain as students show up for an event. I have a tendency to think 2-3 steps ahead of what is presently going on. Early arrivers check-in and I barely even acknowledge them as I’m still lost in the mental checklists of a deeply analytical moment.

And I’ve learned over the years that since I’m lost in those details it’s better to identify a couple of volunteers who can be fully present when students arrive with their parents. It’s better to allow them to greet trip participants, answer questions, and get their bag put in the right place.

But there comes a moment in each youth group trip where I have to intentionally shift gears and turns off all of that forward thinking.

Sometimes you just have to shut up and drive the van.

That’s how I’m feeling about life right now. There are a myriad of things going on. Too many things to list and some far too personal or private to share. But each day I have to find a moment where I tell myself, “Just shut up and drive.”

All of that future planning and strategy is great. But if I don’t shut up and drive forward, those plans and strategies will become regrets. And ultimately, intentions, plans, and strategies don’t mean squat. All that matters is results.

Shut up and drive.

Photo by Phillip Howard via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Then how are you measuring what people are learning?

As a youth worker I’m always aware of leakage in my teaching. That is, the difference between what I am teaching and what learners are learning.

There is a naughty little educational word called “retention” we need to deal with. If there isn’t, what is the point of my teaching if my pupils aren’t learning?

Questions I ask myself as a communicator of Biblical truth:

• Why am I teaching them?
• How do I measure if they are learning?
• How do I teach all levels of learners, interest levels, and learning styles at the same time?

Those who have sat under my leadership know that I do a lot of repetition and context to my regular teaching. Why do I do that? Because I want some things to stick. It doesn’t matter to me if you write it down in your outline or talked about it in a small group, I believe the Bible has incredible value for believers, we are called to know God’s Word, and we as leaders as told that one of our qualifications for biblical leadership is an ability to teach. I repeat and quiz because I want to burn an image of God’s Word on your heart. It’s not enough to know about the Bible… the teachings of Jesus have to be in your heart to impact your daily life.

I also know, as a leader, I’ll be judged by what people actually learn and what people actually do with what I am teaching them.

As the years have gone by I’ve become less enamored with perfecting my lecture-styled teaching and more enamored with a discussion-based, conversational-style.

Why? Because I’ve found, for me, that method to be a solid way to engage with the middle 70% of my audience. Folks in the top 15% aren’t my target. And folks in the lower 15%… I hope to teach them with other methods that work for them.

Last Monday, I posed the question: Why are we, as believers, expected to listen more than we act?

Some commenters took the post as an attack on the church, going to church, and those who lead at church. Others seemed offended that I’d even bring up Sunday morning as something we could collectively improve upon.

My intention was to the contrary. It was an attack on doing something that is largely ineffective for the sake of doing what we know in opposition to what might work better. For all of the thousands of hours the average church goer has listened to we should have seen so much more fruit. Let’s not forget that the church is on decline.

That pushes questions to the forefront of my mind: Is it the hearer who is disobedient to the teaching? Or is it the teacher who is failing to teach truth in a way that influences action? Probably some fault lies on either side.

It is my hypothesis that the primary method we are using for educating our congregations on Sunday mornings needs alteration. Church leadership is full of brilliant minds. We should show off our brilliance in our ability to lead people in innovative way: Not just talk about leadership but do it.  Not merely preach a message that doesn’t move people, instead allow the message we preach to move us.

At the end of the day results are all that matter. Jesus isn’t going to look at you and say, “Awesome preaching, my good and faithful servant.” He will look at your body of work and judge you by the results & intention of your heart.

Photo by byronv2 via Flickr (Creative Commons)

What are the physical restrictions to learning on Sunday morning?

Nearly all churches are constructed the same way. Rows of seats all facing forward with a person on stage or behind a podium. That person lectures, sometime passionately, sometimes you fill out an outline, sometimes words are put on a screen.

But the Sunday morning experience is typically based on a single teaching method: Lecture.

Is that how you learn best? It isn’t for me. I learn best by hearing, discussing, and practicing. Passive-learning bores me. I need something to do!

And when I look around on Sunday morning I don’t see a lot of learning going on. (Bear in mind, my pastor is off the charts good at what he does, he is my favorite preacher. Week in and week out, he’s just as solid as people who have sold as who we have at our conferences.) Instead, I see a lot of polite nodding, the occasional taking of notes, and virtually no way to respond.

Sunday morning is highly assumptive.

• There is an assumption that people in the pews are going to live this teaching out in their lives.
• There is an assumption that people are going to talk about what they heard at lunch or with a small group, or somehow try to knead the message into their lives.
• There is an assumption that the church staff spends the majority of their work week living that message out.
• There are no checks and balances to make sure anyone is putting anything into practice. (Staff and attendee alike.)
• The proof is in the pudding. There are hundreds of thousands of churches in America. Most use the same methods, few grow. Conversely, where the church is growing around the world and even here in the United States, different methods are in play.

The “It’s not about Sunday morning argument.“

I’ll be the first to admit that the Christian life isn’t 100% about Sunday morning. But, for most people, it’s the centerpiece of their walk with God. People aren’t just whining about being busy, they are. And they are sitting in your pews, bored, and saying to themselves… “You kind of waste my time on Sunday morning, why should I trust you with more of my time? We don’t need another program. We need this program to work for us.” If it isn’t about Sunday morning than why do we even do it? Of course Sunday morning is very important! Let’s not fool ourselves with double talk.

Are the methods we use on Sunday morning “sacred?“

Sure, Paul preached until a young man fell from a window and died. (Then Paul healed him.) And Jesus preached both at the temple and in public. No doubt, he was taught by rote memory as a boy growing up attending the synagogue. At the same time, oral tradition and discourse were both forms of education and forms of entertainment. We see from the New Testament that Jesus didn’t instruct his disciples to build churches and hold meetings. Instead, he taught them while they were on the road from place to place. Or by sending them out in pairs to do ministry in His name. Or using parables. Or by asking them questions. In truth, we see a variety of teaching methods to communicate biblical truth in the Bible.

While the way we’ve always done church is held as sacred, the methods we use aren’t Biblically sacred. But what is sacred is the simple command to teach.

A challenge

Photo by SparkFun Electronics via Flickr (Creative Commons)

I want to challenge you to try something. Maybe it’ll sound crazy. But maybe it’ll just be crazy enough to change your church. (And maybe you don’t have access to try this with the whole church, so try it with your youth group!)

Conduct a six-week experiment.

Week one: Teach a normal Sunday service. On Thursday, send out a 5 question email (or Facebook) survey for Sunday morning attendees, asking them 4 basic questions about your message, and one open-ended question about how they applied the message on Sunday morning. (What was the passage? What was the main point? Which of the following was an illustration? What’s one way you are applying last week’s teaching today?)

Week two: Teach, again, in your normal fashion. This week, acknowledge after the sermon that they will again receive a survey via email on Thursday. This will tip them off that it is coming, so expect the results to be higher.

Take weeks three & four off from the experiment. You’ll be tempted to peak at the results so far. Show discipline!

Week five: Try a different teaching method on Sunday morning. Maybe teach by discussion. Or get people into work groups. Do anything that isn’t one person up front teaching. Don’t warm people that this is coming! That’ll mess up the experiment. Then send out the same 5 question survey again. (Expect some negative comments, people coming on Sunday might hate any type of change.)

Week six: Use the same method one more time. Send out the same survey. Just like in week two, tell them to expect a short survey on Thursday.

At the end of the six weeks unseal the results and meet together as a staff to look at them. Did retention scores increase or decrease? Did the change in method cause more people to apply teaching? Did the workgroups hold each other accountable? Overall, what was the net change? (Heck, maybe the old method was statistically better!)

Week seven: Send out one last email sharing the full results.

This will serve two purposes. First, it’ll communicate to your congregation that you are taking your biblical role as a teacher seriously and being professional by sharing the results of an experiment which involved them. Second, it’ll invite the congregation into the problem solving. Chances are good that you’ll get a lot of feedback simply by conducting the experiment.

Of course, I’d love it if you shared your results with me as well. Email me a Word document and I’ll share them on my blog.

A couple weeks back I wrote about our free retreat. I just got back. It was a quick, but profitable time.

I’m more convinced than ever that when you are good news first, not only will the Good News be received, but the news of Good News will spread like wild fire as a result.

Last night the whole group shared some intimate details of our story. At the core we found a deep need for our Heavenly Father to step in and our desperate need for our community to become our family.

There is great hope, there. To have a heavenly Father that literally can’t betray you, leave you, and is bound to never forsake you is a promise too important to miss.

Half of my brain is thinking, “Wow, we’ve stumbled on a great way to minister to hurting teenagers.” But the other half of me is thinking, “Wow, we’ve stumbled on an amazing way to minister to every teenager.”

Our culture is wounded and destructive. But praise be to God that these wounded students cry out to God from Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

I’ll unpack that more another day.

That’s the goal of our high school ministries Winter retreat.

I’m not talking about a cash neutral event to the youth budget. I’m talking about… we’ve got no money so we need to do this retreat for free. We don’t have budget money and our students literally have no cash to offset expenses.

Here’s what we’re trying to do:

Create a memorable, kinetic, outside-of-our-neighborhood, experience with our high school group. We need this retreat. It’ll be good for the students and it’ll be good for the group.

Here’s how we’re going to do it

Beg: I’m not too proud to beg. Especially when it comes to the faith development of the students in our ministry. Fortunately, when it came to location, I didn’t even have to beg. I just asked a Kingdom-minded friend if we could crash his youth building for 30 hours. When I visited Danny Long earlier this fall and saw his facilities (about 30 minutes from City Heights, but far enough into East County to feel completely separate from the urban environment.) I asked if it might be a possibility to use his building for a retreat. Without flinching he was happy to do it.

Next up, Kathy (our youth pastor) asked her cousin to lead worship. Done. Teaching? I’m pretty sure we’ll split those duties. Now we’re out begging for folks to pick up the tab on our Costco run for food for the retreat.

All that’s left is to beg off some programming elements. One of the tricks I learned from retreat-guru Lars Rood [author of an upcoming YS book on doing ministry for cost-neutral or free] was to not skimp on experience. So we are officially on the lookout to bring something to this retreat that our students from City Heights completely unexpected. (Horseback riding, sledding, paintball, or something along those lines.)

Borrow: We’re going to borrow ideas. Darn near all of them. Why spend all the time thinking up stuff when we can take things people are already offering for free and tweak them to work in our ministry/ From activity ideas to theme to kitchen appliances.

Steal: OK, we’re not going to steal anything. But we are stealing victory from the enemy by doing something we can’t afford for free. We might not be a resource rich ministry, but we are a resourceful group who aren’t ashamed to rely on the Kingdom.

Have you ever done a ministry event like this? If so, leave a comment and share your idea. [So I can steal it.]

Like all my friends in youth ministry, I have acquired a growing list of graduates that now scatter the globe. Some are freshmen in college this year, some are married and have cool jobs, and most are kind of in an in-between state. We bump into each other from time-to-time, we comment on one anothers life on Facebook, and I hope they pray for me as I have committed to praying for them. This post is for them.

Dear former students-

Dr. Seuss was right! Oh, the places you have gone and the things you have done. Some of you I’ve kept up with pretty closely while most I only get to see little snippets of when you come to town or with what you post on Facebook.

I just wanted to say to you publicly some things that you need to hear. Life has a way of transforming your dreams into a lame reality and I thought it might be valuable to get a third-party perspective on things.

Let’s take one more trip up the mountain and dream about what God wants for you.

The world is yours for the taking

Seriously, have you looked at your peer group? Life has dealt you a hand that you can easily take advantage of! It’s shocking to me that tomorrows influencers are impressed when snippets of their lives appear on the Fail Blog or Texts From Last Night.

Never confuse failure for success, no matter how popular it may seem. God has so much more for you in mind.

If you can rise above that stupidity and soak in as much education and experience as you can in the next 2-3 years you will be head and shoulders above the idiots who walked across the stage with you in high school.

IQ & money & SAT & GPA mean jack squat right now. It’s all about hard work. Outwork your peer group and you will succeed.

Tomorrows employers are watching what you are doing today. They want to know… were you one of those knuckleheads we laughed at on Fail Blog? When you explain to them that you were too busy taking care of your classes and holding down a job to pay for college… the doors of opportunity will swing open.

Take every class seriously. You are paying for it (and will pay for it for the next 10 years) so force your professors to give you their very best. If they don’t perform at their best challenge them to step it up privately. Wrestle through the temptation to blow off classes. Sit in the front 2 rows. Don’t open up your laptop. Take notes the old fashioned way. Do your reading. Turn stuff in.

Outwork everyone.

Take every job opportunity seriously. I don’t care if you are making sandwiches at Subway or whipping snot from a kids nose at daycare. Do it for the glory of God. This isn’t a great job market but that doesn’t mean you can’t do great at your job. Remember, he who is faithful with the small things…

Outwork everyone.

This stage of life isn’t about friends. It might feel like it should be, but that’s not true. People going places aren’t worried about such things. Look around at your classes today. Your job is to figure out how to rise above all of the people in that room. You don’t have to be smarter than them or get better grades than them… you just have to out position them.

No one expects anything from your generation. Rise above that and the world is yours.

Hard work, hard work, hard work. This is the path to success.

No one is going to hook you up so hook yourself up.

Grunt out this 5-6 years of your life, act like an adult as soon as possible, and you will reap the rewards for decades to come.

The church desperately needs you

I did my best to teach the Word of God to you plainly. Some of you absorbed it and took it seriously, some did not. That’s OK as you picked up more than you think you did.

Find a local church, get involved, and help them reach their community. It can be the church you grew up attending. It can be a new church. Really, just go to church.

Trust your instincts on what a healthy church is. It will feel right. It doesn’t have to be big or flashy. It doesn’t have to have a killer program you love or a hot musician. You don’t have to feel comfortable with everything they do and you don’t have to think it’s perfect. My experience is that I feel most negative about a church when I just go and am not involved or giving money. I guarantee you that if you become part of a churches ministries and give what you can, you will feel like you fit in.

Your church just has to love Jesus, love God’s Word, and have a stupid belief that the Gospel can change lives.

At the same time, I taught you to think critically about the world around you. This is the most valuable skill needed in the church today. There are enough Christians who are satisfied with reaching a small percentage of the community. Lead bravely wherever you get involved. Remind those at church what the Bible actually says. Hold them to it. The Book of Acts is possible today!

I pray that you keep believing that every person in your area needs to know Jesus and not to accept 10% as the best you can do. I hope you see things that need to be fixed in this world and step into the responsibility to right wrongs.

Don’t just be consumers of the Word of God. Be doers.

Move out as soon as possible

There is something about your parents generation that wants to hold onto you and baby you as long as possible. Resist that temptation.

I know it’s nice to have someone take care of you. And I know that its nice to have someone do your laundry.

Get out. It’s not helping.

The fastest way to grow up is to leave the nest. I’m not saying you need to hate your parents or that you aren’t supposed to ever see them again. But I am saying that if you are over 18 the best biggest step you can make to being accepted as a “real adult” is to get out.

The fastest way for you to get dependent is to stop taking their money. Find some people and share an apartment. Pay your own bills. Eat your own Ramen if you have to. You aren’t going to starve… you’re going to get hungry to grow up!

I’m still here for you

If you need someone to talk to, I am now and hope to always be here to listen and offer advice. At the very least, know that I continue to pray for you.

I expect great things from you. As I said when you were in middle and high school– I have a fundamental belief in your generation.

Be better than my generation. Now. Now. Now.

– adam

Youth ministry seems to be facing asymmetrical challenges right now.

Two of them on the forefront of my mind are longevity and transference of wisdom.

With a tough job market and a climate of deconstruction/re-thinking/shifting in the profession… it really pains me to see a lot of very gifted youth workers move on.

Some of them are my friends. And I put on a happy face to try to be happy for you when you send me an email telling me of your bright new idea. But I’m really sad when I see our dreams for one another give way to something else. For a myriad of reasons our sophmoric desire to be in youth ministry for a lifetime has given way to leaving ministry altogether or becoming a church planter or taking a “higher” staff position at a church as executive/lead/teaching pastor.

If I read those reasons right, most of them seem to imply– more stable, more money, more powerful positions.

Let our 20-year old self talk to our 34-year old self for a second… “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?!??!!”

Those are all things we swore we wouldn’t give our dreams to. But, if I can use passive/politically correct language for a minute, life seems to be forcing some of us to sell out.

I just want to toss this out there. Maybe there are others who are sitting on the fence and looking at greener pastures.

• Don’t punk out.
• Working with teenagers is as important now as ever.
• Fight the temptation to take an easier way out of your problems.
• You’ve always said youth ministry wasn’t a stepping stone.
• The grass won’t be greener as a church planter or a lead pastor, you know it and I know it.

We know this to be true: As cultural spins faster and faster the brightest minds and the greatest innovations are now will continue to flow from youth workers just trying to figure out how to best minister to kids in their neighborhoods. The best ministry innovations are not now nor have ever flowed from the top down. It’s always the other way around. The best innovators typically don’t have the biggest platforms nor do they typically have agents.

Why?

Intrinsic hunger forces innovation. The best ideas come when you have no other choice but to innovate.

Sure– I know someone is going to light me up for saying it. After all, who am I to question decisions that aren’t mine? And all the other voices in my friends heads telling them they need to go plant a church, be a teaching pastor, or chase another vocation must be right and I must be wrong.

But I’m allowing myself to be sad. And I’m allowing myself to put it in writing that you don’t have to punk out. Adversity, frustration, questioning, tension, getting fired, having to adapt, making less money, and being discouraged aren’t now and never have been “God closing doors.”

Sometimes those things are merely a testing of calling and God rewards you for passing the test.

Sure, the world needs more senior pastors. Sure the world needs more church planters. Sure the world needs more whatever-it-is-that-is-taking-you-from-youth-ministry.

But those kids. (The kid that was you. That kid was me.) That kid will always need a youth worker there at just the right moment to say just the right thing.