How I Was Called To Serve In Student Ministry

During the month of August I really began to question if our church was truly our home and where we were supposed to grow in the Lord. Naturally, in any church, you will find gossip, legalism, judgment, snootiness, etc. etc. etc.  You name it and my church probably has it. (I bet your church does too.) You will never find a perfect church, because Churches are filled with people and PEOPLE aren’t PERFECT. Not to mention that the building isn’t the church… the people are. 

I started to consider the idea of only attending an “organic” church. Yes - you heard me right, “organic.” Our neighbors have made a life of planting and growing organic churches in their community. Now, honestly I don’t know much about it yet, but from what I hear it sounds really AWESOME. You get to dive into the word AND you’re in fellowship with other believers! Minus all the yucky stuff that often comes along with going to a big traditional church. WIN-WIN! 

Even so – I still had questions. What about worshiping together? What about tithing? What about Baptism? I have a sea of questions and while some of my questions have been answered, there are still things I’d like to find out. I hope to learn even more about Organic church in the coming weeks. 

Even though I battled with being conflicted on where I “went to church,” God was still telling me that I should get involved with the youth. At first I wasn’t sure what that looked like. 

“HOW should I get involved?” I asked. 

I reached out to our Youth Pastor and expressed my interest in checking things out – get my feet wet – so to speak. He was excited and pumped that I showed an interest. He sent me a packet of information with an application. 

He specifically said in his email,

“Did we talk about you being a small group leader? Because I think you’d be really great at it!”  

I  had already been thinking in my mind that that was probably the best route for me for 2 reasons:

1. Being a small group leader requires a Sunday morning commitment, but not necessarily a Wednesday night commitment, though I hope that at some point I can make an appearance there as well. During this season of my life with very young children, for us, it’s not practical for me to expect us to be there every Wednesday night.
2. Being a small group leader allows me to dive deeper with the girls and build that bond and relationship with them.

After the Youth Pastor verbalized how he felt that I would be great in that role – I knew that was probably the route to take, so I submitted my application and testimony. Last Sunday I decided to follow up with the student small group coordinator in regards to my application.

 She confirmed she received it and we decided that it would be a good idea to visit a small group that needed a co-leader… 

8^th grade girls. 13 YEAR OLDS!   

“Um, no thanks God! That is NOT what I had in mind!” 

I wanted the older, more mature ones.

I kept telling myself...

 “Just go visit and see what it’s like and then next week I can go visit high school and join one of their small groups.” 

 I sat in on 8^th grade girls and to be honest… it was absolutely NUTS. It took 30 minutes to actually get them focused in on STARTING our group discussion. It was utter chaos.

 I went in with no intention on saying a word other than introducing myself and asking them to introduce themselves. Towards the end of our discussion, I felt led to contribute to the discussion (even though I planned not to) What happened next was shocking. Some of them actually started talking and contributing. One girl even zeroed in on my eyes as I was sharing what the Lord put on my heart and she appeared mesmerized. 

Leaving group that morning I was certain that’s the group I’m supposed to be in and  that I’m in it for the long haul.

This position requires that I reach out to the girls on a regular basis. Through the time I spend with them, I hope to become a mentor and a source of encouragement in their lives. I want to be a small group leader because I want to let them know it’s okay if they mess up –  that they CAN tell me that! In a perfect world teens should feel comfortable going to their parents when they’ve made a mistake – but let’s face it… that’s not always the case. And if they can’t go to their parents with that they need to go somewhere.

 I want to be that person.

 I’ve experienced so much forgiveness and grace in my life that I so desperately want to share that with others and this is the perfect opportunity to do that. 

If a girl tells me “I think I screwed up.” I can’t wait to say...

“It’s okay! I love you anyway! And more importantly JESUS loves you anyway! And we can get through this!”

I can’t wait for the moments that allow me to pray over them in this way.

I thought it would be a good idea to connect with my co-leader about how she felt about my visit and what she thought about me possibly joining her. I of course wanted to make sure that she felt it would be a good fit for the group. What she said brought a huge smile to my face...

“I am really excited about this!! I started praying for help with the group, whatever that might look like. It is awesome to physically see in front of me an answer to prayer, and because of that I know that this will work perfectly!”

After getting together with her and chatting, we received even MORE confirmation that this is a perfect fit. We are close in age but in totally different seasons of life and I feel that we will both benefit from co-leading together, not to mention the girls benefiting from us being a team.

Unless God clearly directs us down a different path, both my co-leader and I plan on being with these girls through high school graduation.

And there you have it folks - God said…

“Learn about this whole Organic church thing and even start attending sometimes, but don’t leave YOUR church.”

I’m humbled and so excited to see what God has planned over these next 5 years. 

Tomorrow starts my 5 year journey with these girls and I'm bringing cake balls for breakfast... hope that makes a good first impression as their new leader. :)

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15