When you feel like you failed...

I was on Facebook the other day and I happened to see a post from a girl who was in my first youth group.  She is a college Freshman this year and has chosen to attend one of the biggest party schools in the country.  As I looked at her profile picture and then scrolled down to see her posts, I was saddened.  Her picture showed her and two of her friends in very short dresses with lots of cleavage and high heels.  Her posts bosted of getting a fake ID and going out to a dance club. 

It wasn't so much her actions that saddened me, although they did leave me worried.  What saddened me was that I had poured a lot of my time and energy into this girl when she was in Jr. High.  We hung out together frequently, going to the mall or making dinner at her house.  I knew her and her family well.  I shared my faith with her and prayed for her.  My last year at her church I remember watching her begin to change. She began to shift away from her family and towards the immense peer pressures at her school.  These included the need to buy $100 jeans and shorts with "Juicy" on the back.  I had no idea that five years later she would have fallen so far into this pressure that she would be getting fake ID's and dressing like a pop star.

I look at her Facebook and can't help but feel like I failed.  Somehow, despite all the time I spent with this girl, and how much I pointed her to Jesus, she still chose to go the way of the world.  I'm sure that Jesus felt this way too.  One of his disciples, the ones he had spent most of his time with and shared the deep mysteries of his Father with, chose to deny him.  Another betrayed him and gave him up to be killed. 

I'm sure Jesus felt the way I feel now.  Stunned, incredulous, and sad.  It helps to know that Jesus experienced these same feelings and yet he was not discouraged.  He had a plan and he knew that his message was bigger.  When we feel like we failed and when students we have poured our lives into choose to walk away, we can remember that God's redemptive story is so much bigger.  We can keep them in our prayers and trust that God still has something in mind for them.

Comfort

As I've been thinking about what to do for these girls and as people have been looking to me for guidance on what they can do, Matthew 5:4 has come to mind.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

Sometimes our comfort comes through words or cards or flowers. Other times it just comes through presence. Last night I watched the powerful presence of dozens of our youth leaders and church members coming to the viewing to hug these girls and share in their pain.

This mourning I saw the presence of two of our youth group students standing at the graveside service beside one of the girls. Dressed in their black clothes and holding her hands.

The image struck me as I saw the depth of their friendship and the presence they were in that moment for her.

It was an incredibly sad thing to watch these teens as their mother was laid in earth at such a young age. It has broken each of our hearts.

Rain

I am sitting here in my office, watching the rain pour down outside my window and I can't help but feel that God is grieving with us.

Yesterday, two teenage girls in our youth group lost their mother to cancer. It was a long battle with an unexpected end. Our hearts are heavy for them.

It's times like this when I feel inadequate. If I were a Senior Pastor, maybe I'd have learned the words to say to a grieving family. If I were a counselor, I'd be able to delve deep into the grief with them. But instead, I'm just me. A youth worker whose heart goes out to these girls.

It seems there are times when all we can do is pray. To lift them up to the Lord and grieve alongside of them.

Are you still wet?

This past Sunday, a newborn baby was baptized at our church. I love watching baptisms, because there is something so innocent, so holy, about them. This week, our pastor held the precious baby girl in her long white baptism gown. He sprinkled her with water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and prayed over her. Afterwards, he walked her down the aisle so that all of us could see this precious little child of God. As he walked by my pew, I looked up and noticed that her head was still wet from her baptism, and that she was smiling.

There was something special about that. Seeing someone still wet from their baptism. Filled with the joy of the Lord. It made me wonder whether we are still "wet" from our own baptisms or whether we have dried up. Have we forgotten the precious gifts we received from the Lord? Forgiveness, grace, eternal life. Do we take them for granted as we go about our daily tasks?

The next time you witness a baptism, take some time to think about your own baptism. Are you faithfully living the promises you or your parents made? Are you seeking to grow in the faith and live in the joy of the Lord?

Are you still wet?

In the Darkness

"Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you." Psalm 139:12

I read this passage the other day and it reminded me of the dark times in our lives. In life and ministry we often go through periods where we feel like darkness is all around us and we can't seem to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This passage is great, because it reminds us that our darkness is light to God. God knows what we are going through and he is right there walking it with us.

Comfort

"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." Isaiah 40:1

A few weeks ago I was at the National Youth Worker's Convention in San Diego. In some ways, this felt like home. I've been going to these conventions for nine years or so and each time I return it feels like I am with family. These are my people. They get me. As I was playing "Capture the Rubber Chicken" in the hotel lobby and dancing to the DJ's tunes before the Bigroom sessions, I realized we could do just about anything we wanted and we'd be accepted. We'd be loved for who we are, because we really get each other.

One of the things we get is that ministry can be a challenge. It's not easy to stay up all night at lock-ins, to deal with angry parents, to please our pastors and staff. It's not easy to pick out just the right lesson or game to capture the attention of teenagers. It's not easy to present the Gospel in a relavant way that will change the lives of our students.

It's just not easy.

So as we listened to speakers and sang worship songs, we felt like everyone around us understood who we are and they were singing along with us. At the end of one of the speaker's talks, he gave an invitation for anyone to come forward to the space surrounding the stage as a symbolic act of recommitment to ministry. Youthworkers began to come forward and I watched them from my chair near the front. I didn't particularly feel the call to come forward, but when the speaker asked other youth workers to come up and pray for them, I found myself immediately going forward. I reached down and put my hand on a woman's shoulder. She was kneeling on the ground with her head bowed. I began to pray for her, and as I prayed, I felt her shoulders shaking. It was only a slight movement, but I could feel the emotion behind it. The pain. I began to pray more fervently and I began to think about all the things that may be waying her down. As I was praying, with one hand still on her shoulder, I lifted up my other hand towards the ceiling. I pictured myself lifting this woman up to God. For healing. For hope.

It was a powerful experience following a year or so of thinking about God's call to encourage other youth workers. As I returned to my home state and talked about this experience with a friend, we thought, "Why not start a blog to encourage youth workers?" Thus "Come Alongside" has begun...