August 24, 2015
To be a pastor in charge of youth is an enormous responsibility. It's not to run around and play and eat pizza on Friday nights. It's not to venture on silly trips and be sleep deprived after lock-ins. To be a pastor of youth is to minister to people at the most vulnerable point in their lives. To minister to these people who struggle with their identity, their families, their physical selves, their hopes and fears of future. And they have very little control over these things. Their bodies were made this way, to change and grow and be different when it's all over. This in-between time, when these people are becoming who they will, is the holiest time of any of our lives.
And this is the time when, very often, ministers with the least amount of training are given incredible freedom to step into these lives, and to hopefully, do good.
I have tried to do this. My programs have varying levels of success. Their numbers look good, but I'm not so much interested in that piece. I am interested in the shaping. The holding of what is holy and doing no harm to these creatures, these images of God, stinky and awkward and flailing to their eventual selves.
And I feel the need to remind us, all of us who have made it through those years with varying amounts of success, that being a teenager is hard. We all knew this once, but we forget at some point. Likely because we push those years to the very edges of our memories, hoping to forget the worst, distorting the best to make it more than it was.
So for all of us, pastors, teachers, parents, coaches, counselors - remember, these lives are hard. And they are holy. And to all those pastors like myself who have no idea what you're doing, who have less training than you feel like you should and find yourself chasing your tails to figure out what in the world will interested these strange creatures we call youth - what you're doing matters. And any who are allowed access into these lives have a tremendous responsibility to tread lightly, to listen deeply, and to love with all your heart.
