Yesterday we kicked off a series of articles at YMX. Let me tell you why I’m excited about this series. It is practical, between the eyes, encouragement to youth workers.
One of the main goals of YMX is to be an encouragement to the Youth Ministry community. So I have been asking our forum moderators and a few other folks to write brief notes of encouragement to the community called “You Matter.”
Why is this so important?
This is purely practical. This is the time of year church staff and volunteers are under a lot of pressure. Tough to isolate the source of that pressure for everyone… but there is pressure. This is the time of year when a lot of ministries hit the long part of their schedules. Endless weeks of planning and executing between now and June are ahead. This is the time of year when many people experience seasonal depression. All that to say, this is the perfect time to encourage the discouraged.
Here’s an incomplete list of You Matter articles you can expect to see over the next few days. You Matter to God, You Matter to Your Community, You Matter to Your Spouse, You Matter to Your Students, You Matter to Your Schools, You Matter to your Church, You Matter to Your Spouse, You Matter to Parents.
Yesterday, Patti kicked this in with flare.
You matter. It’s not what you do, it’s you. More than you matter to your family, your students, your church, or anyone else, you matter to God.
When the days are hard, it’s tough to remember that before you mattered to anyone else, you mattered to God. He knew you first. He sees your whole life from beginning to end, and He always has. He sees your potential and created you to fulfill it. He knows what it is to be you, face what you face, feel what you feel, because He put on frail humanity for you. No, He hasn’t faced your elder board or senior pastor, or a difficult parent, or your unruly students. But He has faced Pilate, the High Priests, his broken-hearted mother, a skeptical hometown, and mentored a promising but thick-headed group of guys (who incidentally achieved astounding results after He’d gone on). Read the rest
Leave a Reply