Youth

Tonight at youth was a powerful experience. I tell you I was confident we would be delivered, but I was edgy because I felt so unprepared. When Byron told me two weeks ago he was teaching a program and wanted me to work with him on it I was excited again. Byron said he wanted his program to be on “Our Purpose” and I was immediately deflated. I had so many ideas and things I had lined up in my mind of what I wanted to talk about and none of them had to do with our purpose. I didn’t even know what that meant really and he tried to explain but I couldn’t seem to connect with it.

A week passed and I’ll be honest I had been busy and hadn’t put a ton of thought into it. We met and discussed and while we stuck to the topic we couldn’t come up with anything to surround it. I went home and ravaged the Word and couldn’t come up with anything that connected. I thought about the body and how we all work together and have different roles but it wasn’t right. I couldn’t come up with anything after another week had passed and it was the day before we taught. No Scripture, no activity, no music to connect anything.

That night before I came across one Scripture Romans 9:17, Byron also recalled a Pastor that had some stuff that might help us so he got that earlier today for tonight. He had also gone on a youth leadership camp over the weekend and it had reaffirmed the topic of our purpose. That was a focal point of the camp and while Byron tried to think of other topics he couldn’t get away from this one. I had given him a CD the week before (for two weeks I forgot but I happened to remember before he left for camp). The music from that CD was used all weekend as part of the camp and it was perfect for our program as well.

For our last presentation I had the whole discussion, questions and possible scenarios ready (if this happened then A if this then B), activities, purchased the props, etc. all together two weeks ahead of time. I had a typed up step by step of how it would run.

This time we reviewed about an hour before we taught and shared the one page he brought for his lesson. He said he wanted to just read from the paper and ask questions and see where it led. I tell you the truth - up until the moment we started I had no doubt it was going to go well even though I felt SO under prepared. Once it started though Byron read a few things and asked some questions. It was not going very well – we got one answer per question and honestly very generic and flat answers and no one seemed interested. We were moving through the paper quickly and it seemed we’d be done before 10 minutes had passed.

Then suddenly the mood changed, I can’t say why but we asked a question. What gets in your way between you and God? Some very “they” “we” “many youth” responses came back. We said again no, no, not what gets in some person’s or some youths - what gets in your way. And suddenly it was a very different night. Tears flowed and hearts were broken down. Occasionally there are prayer requests, tonight they didn’t stop. We went as a group to the chapel and prayed on our own but together in the room. We went over the time by an hour and not a single person left or complained or even looked at the clock.

Powerful stuff!

I came home still on fire and when Ursula poured her heart out about her hurt I finally had the words I’ve been waiting patiently (at times) for. I hope it helped. I know her words helped me with a lot of situations that are going through my family and friends lives right now.