Students can be incredibly hard to
reach. I mean really reach. They’ll be your friend. They’ll talk to you.
They’ll even let you develop a perception that you’ve reached them on a deep
level…but you haven’t.
My truck was in the shop recently
and a colleague picked me up and gave me a ride to the office. En route we
drove by a large high school. In talking about it we both instinctively said,
“I do NOT miss high school!” Honestly, it was pretty awful. Middle school
wasn’t much better. High school is hard, so in order to protect themselves
students build up various levels of walls to keep the big scary world out.
As youth ministers we have to climb
over the monumental fact that we’re not students with them. We’re not their
peers. As much as why try to be “relevant” or “on their level,” at the end of
the day we’re still just another adult vying for their attention and claiming
the authority to speak into their lives. Once you work, and invest in the
relationship, and lose hours at lock-ins and online playing CoD, and sitting in
the bleachers cheering at football games, there are still just some areas that
won’t let you through. There are just some gates you can’t get past.
And then, usually you have no idea
that it’s coming, a student will come up to you and share something spiritually
amazing that’s happened in their lives…and they thank you, sometimes you hug,
sometimes there are tears. You really have to treasure those moments. And I do.
I write about them in my journal. I have a file for things that students hand
to me. I even keep scrapbooks of ministries I’ve worked with in the past. All
of those things are an important part of keeping your sanity in ministry.
All of that being said, I kind of
always thought those moments were amazing, but just an unexplainable mystery of
the greatness of God. I mean, how we can get over the disparity of our stations
in life, somehow sneak past their defenses and then find amazing rewards…and,
maybe I’m burying the lead here, then I read this:
I will go before you
and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
3 I will give you hidden treasures,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
