Yes, the first couple of paragraphs are the same incase you didn't read the first blog in this sereis...if you did read the first in this sereis then please feel free to skip down...
As a 20 yr old I had already been working with a youth group for a couple years as a leader. I was not qualified or called, I just didn't want to attend the college group because, I thought, it was boring and none of my friends went.
The summer of '99 God called me into ministry. It was a definate calling. The beginning of the summer I thought the idea of being a youth pastor was ridiculous! By the end of that summer there was nothing else I wanted to do! God changed my heart.
I had a passion for students. I wanted to love them and teach them and do life with them...and that was all I wanted to do.
That passion carried me through school (something I have never been that good at). Right out of college I worked part-time at a church as well as at a crisis intervention home for teenagers. I loved it. I watned to do ministry full-time but was not given the chance yet.
It is now 10 years after that summer of 1999 and I have been through so much in ministry. God has done so much. I have been able to do those things that God gave me the passion for but there are some things that I know about now that I wish I would have known about back then.
PARENTS:
I think that living in doing minsitry in the era that I began in the whole "parent ministry" thing as part of the youth ministry wasn't a really big deal yet. It seemed as I interned and volunteered in ministry that the vibe I got from youth pastor's or leaders was that parents were annoying, skeptical, critical, unsupportive, nosey, gossips, etc.
As the shifts in ministry have happened my views on parents has changed as well. From the beginning of my vocational ministry I have told parents that I/we (the ministry) wants to "team" with them in impacting their son or daughter. In loving them, in speaking the truth in love, in modeling Christ for them, etc. I don't know how many parents actually believed me but it was a true desire of mine...kinda.
It was the right thing to say. It made parents feel like that was my goal but I'm not sure if I was being really true to myself even by saying that. There was still this underlying negative feeling about parents. When a parents would come up to me to "talk" or ask questions there would be this guard that went up...partially from the mentality I witnessed prior to those experiences and partialy because some parents really are pushy, nosey, critical, etc. and I had run ins with a few of them.
BUT, as I have come to understand my role more (still evolving) and have read more and talked to older and wiser people and also matured personally, I can see how if God has called me to work with teenagers and statistically parents are the biggest influence in their lives (especially in the spitirual lives of teens) and they probably want what is best for their son/daughter then it seems logical that we should work together to impact the teenagers in our lives.
"Two combined influences make a greater impact than just two influences." -not really sure who the original author of that quote is but I saw it in the book Think Orange by Reggie Joiner
1 comment:
Its funny you wrote this because, When I first arived at Roosevelt,there were not many youth. A few here and there but I knew there was a need for a "youth group" I petitioned the church leadership and they told me that they felt that God wanted us as a church to create a home group that was a youth home group,with their parents being part of the same group. I thought they were crazy . Its hard because we were raised in youth groups but now my son is 12 and I would want it no other way. I cant imagine My son going through this time in his life without me or his mother right by his side being apart of the church he is apart of and him being a part of the church we are a part of. The two have been seperated to long. I think Gods wants the parents to be involved I know God wants the parents to be involved. Yes they(the youth) are changin and growing and they need their space but how better to grow than to serve as a family and a church with your parents. Mike I encourage you to continue to engage the parents of your youth and engage them together.God designed the family unit for a reason and true dicipleship begins at home with the parents raising their children to learn to love and honor God with all their heart minds and strength.
luis.
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