I had the huge blessing of going to a breathtaking place, with precious people, for a thrilling reason. I got to go to Washington Family Ranch (which we affectionately call WaFaRa) for a Young Life leader retreat. It was a slice of Heaven on earth. Honestly, I'm humbled and grateful. I have brothers and sisters who are fellow alumni from from my old church youth group leading in their cities, and it's a blessing to hug them and see how they're running their race well. I got to make new friends. Ditch my cell phone. And we worshiped together. The kind of worship that you're not sure if it's starting in your toes or your gut, but it comes out in something less melodic and closer to a shout because you can't not. All in one of the most beautiful places you could ask for!
So some of you may not actually know what Young Life is. I'll share that with you, as well as one of my biggest take-aways and prayer requests.
Young Life is the a ministry for students. I guess in a practical "Chrisian-ese" sense, from the outside it looks a lot like youth group. There's Club. (What we'd equate to youth group meetings) There's Campaigners. (Young Life's version of small groups I guess) There's camp. (Self-explainitory) But it's a whole new culture. These kids likely have no background in any kind of religion, church, or the fact that there is something -SOMEBODY- bigger than themselves, worth living and dying for. Young Life is a ministry about making your city's middle and high school your mission field. It's a ministry that takes you in the trenches. It's a ministry that engages teens, builds trust and relationships first, and then allows the students set the pace for questions and faith-talks they may or may not want to have. It's about making sure every teen you come into contact with knows they are loved. Just because you love them. Not because of what their response, attitude, background or choices may or may not be. It's reaching out to every kid. Not just reaching out to the kids who accept your hand. No body gets left behind, everyone has a chance to engage.
It's about rowing back. Our speaker (who was completely excellent) shared this in his message, and it's haunting me (in a good way) and it's what's keeping me awake. He used an analogy from the Titanc. He explained that the part of the entire story that upset him the worst was the fact that most of the life rafts carrying the survivors weren't totally full. Most were maybe half full. He shared a story of a woman who stood up on her raft and yelled that they had to row back and get more people- fill up the life raft! But everyone else was too scared to risk staying in the water any longer. So they finally shut her up. And people died. People died. People who were somebody's doctor. Somebody's neighbor. Somebody's employee. Somebody's sister. They died because of the cowardice of others, and because others weren't willing to take risks or make sacrifices. They were too concerned of their own safety and well being. But as Young Life leaders - WE ROW BACK. WE REFUSE TO SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP. We dive into the icy water outselves and grab as many as we can onto our raft. We don't let awkwardness, rejection, fear and risk scare us away. We move those things to our perephrial vision and focus on each heart, soul and life. One at a time.
So I ask for your prayer. For our team, and personally. You guys, it's scary rowing back. The water's choppy and unfriendly, you're sea sick and cold and it feels like you'll capsize any time. Please pray for the awesome unity, community, passion, grace and strength for our team to be expanded. Please join me in asking God to bless us with guts, holy defiance, tenacity and perseverance to love these kids. Ask for walls to be torn down. For Divine appointments. For God to expand the territory and bless Young Life with resources. Please pray for God to put us in positions for us to be fully dependent on Him. Pray for His power to be unleashed in our life and community. Pray for the world to change, for all of Heaven to break loose and all of Hell to tremble.
So that's why I haven't even met any of my kids and they're already keeping me awake at night. Because one matters.
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