Our ministry as youth workers and pastors is as broad as it is narrow. We end up doing pretty much everything and anything required of us, but we also tread this incredibly fine (occasionally knife- edged) line with a young person, where we know that at any given moment they might pull back, shut down or simply disappear. It can mean that a lot is riding on our daily interactions with ‘our’ young people.
One of the young people I’ve mentored on and off for years disappeared recently: she jumped on a plane and began something new, somewhere new. I know there’s Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook, Facetime, iPhones, email, Skype and super-sonic-teenage-heat seeking pigeons, but the miles between us mean that I feel out of touch: literally unable to read the body and heart language of a young person in pain, a young person who’s wellbeing matters deeply to me.
I get why she ran. I feel that urge too sometimes, hence the exit strategy.
Are you on the verge of a grand exit of sorts? Desperate to bust out of something that is limiting you like nothing else? Dreaming of escape? Of things being better somewhere else, easier somewhere else? Escape might not be due to stress or fear of failure. Living in an age that programmes our gaze to be drawn to the new shiny thing means staying put can feel like giving up or losing out.
But what if all the kicking and wriggling we do when we feel trapped or ‘undervalued’ means we’re missing the very things, hidden deep beneath our feet, that God is eager for us to find? What if it means we’re missing out on becoming the very people God saw we had it in us to be when he called us here: our organisation, team, youth setting, town or church.
Vanity runs, love digs
French Philosopher Gustave Thibon says: ‘Do not run or fly away in order to get free: rather dig in the narrow place which has been given you; you will find God there and everything. Vanity runs, love digs.’
Ultimately we’re called to dig because we’re called to love. I think this involves straightening out our priorities. And this inevitably involves repentance, because we don’t always get those priorities right! We stick to the old ways when the Spirit is calling us to innovate. We talk up our brilliance as if being a regular person isn’t enough for Jesus and his gospel. Repentance is realigning our responsibilities; knowing what’s God’s and what’s ours, and only sticking our shovel in where he tells us to.
So here’s my Psalm of the moment: ‘Lord, I am not proud and haughty. I don’t think myself better than others. I don’t pretend to “know it all”, I am quiet now before the Lord, just as a child who is weaned from the breast. Yes, my begging has been stilled. O Israel, you too should quietly trust in the Lord — now, and always.’ (Psalm 131, The Living Bible.) This Psalm reminds me that I’m responsible for living bravely with my ordinary life so that others will be brave with theirs. I’m responsible for being faithful in the notnoticed things in life and for opening my heart to God’s direction and correction. I’m responsible for sticking to the path he’s laid out for me even when it looks like a culde- sac. Because God is responsible for the things I crave and need: the protection of his presence, the outcomes and stories I love to share. He’s responsible for transforming the lives and hearts of even the most vulnerable, at risk young person and ultimately for our eternal destiny.
How humbling. How liberating. So as I learn to straighten out these priorities, I hope I look less vain and more loving, of God and the young people he calls me to dig deep for.
So what does this mean for me? Earlier this year I became God-mum to a young person in our church family who got baptised. I’m delighted to have this profound, prayerful link with her. I take it seriously. I’m still her youth worker, but I’m also a mum-in-the-faith for her. On the day she was dunked, I chose a very big fluffy towel to wrap her in and she chose not to shout at me for choosing stereotypical pink. Now when my husband, my daughter and I are invited out for lunch after church, she comes too. We’re a family and we do the very boring things of eating, catching the bus and sorting out college applications, together. With all the challenges in youth ministry, it’s incredible how simple the call to love often is.
There are young people in your life who will teach you, if you let them, the value of staying put and digging deep.
Rachel Gardner is president of the Girls Brigade and on the senior leadership team at Youthscape.
