Youth Ministry

Depending on which of you is reading this, the title will bring about a different emotion. Maybe you are looking forward to being a youth minister so you are excited. Maybe you've been with youth ministry for a while and know both the trials and the joys that go along with it. Some of you may still be youth yourselves and hopefully look up to your youth minister. Others of you may think I am CrAZy for talking about such a thing. And still yet, maybe some of you are thinking, "Youth ministry. Uhhhh... what?" No matter! I have a story to share...

This weekend I was on the team for two (count 'em TWO!) youth rallies! Jr. High was on Saturday and High School on Sunday. What an experience! I've helped with these before. And some have been better than others. But this weekend was probably one of the best. Not that I have that many under my belt. I am definitely a newbie. Anyway, being only 20 years old, I am still sort of in this transitioning stage of moving from being a participant, to being on the team. I definitely understand my role of helping out, but sometimes, the help pulls me more behind-the-scenes. Like standing backstage, running the slide show for whoever is on stage at that point. Which is a great job. I love doing whatever job is given me while I am there. But I am very much a people person. And for me not to be able to get to mingle with the teens was a sacrifice of sorts. It was a very humbling experience. Although they DID pull me on stage to lead 200 Junior High students in an exciting round of "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High" and showing them the dance. But the rest of my day was full of things such as setting up the stage; putting people in sumo suits and velcro suits for the velcro wall; setting up chairs and tables; washing tables; sweeping and mopping floors; directing traffic; handing out flyers; making posters; making copies; finding towels; and even things like filling up water guns and opening 400 band-aids. Don't ask me why. I still don't know. But that was the kind of service asked of me so that's what I did. But you know what? Probably the coolest experience I had this weekend, was our Keynote speaker. His name is Mike Patin. Look him up. He's amazing. This guy travels nearly every week to speak at different events and he is incredible. He's somethin' like a big shot if you ask me. But you know what he did this weekend? All of those same things I just told you I did. He didn't just speak and leave. He didn't just leave his words of wisdom and leave us hangin'. He wasn't above that work. He was right down there with the rest of us. And that in and of itself was absolutely extraordinary. He even took time to get to know ME! Some poor college student from a small town in central MO. I was important. I was appreciated. I made a difference. The thing is... all I did, was show up. That's it. But I was important. So even though I wasn't always on the front-lines as I'd like to be, I loved my job. Loved the ministry. Loved serving God.

Another experience that was overwhelming, was a girl who did NOT want to be there AT ALL! It was difficult because I tried every tactic I knew, and still could not get her involved in anything. I'm sparing you all the details, but it was over my head and it brought me to tears. Luckily, I had lots of youth ministers around me with years of experience under there belt to help me out. THAT was probably the most humbling of them all.

I am getting nudged off the computer so I'll have to postpone any further stories and information until a later date. In the meantime, here's a short clip of Mike Patin.
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