Youth Ministry is in my blood…

I don’t blog on Sundays as a rule, but I’m making a rare exception in the hope someone might read this and pray for me today.

In that vein, this is perhaps more of a personal journal entry, than an instructional blog.

(The very poor cover picture, btw, is from a club I ran in London nearly 15 years ago)

I started volunteering in youth and children’s work just before I turned 14. I was a musician and a group helper in a messy church-style children’s club. I also helped run a Sunday School at my home church, and I ran a house group as part of the leadership team in my youth church.

In the 20 years since, I’ve rarely gone more than a week without being involved in some kind of youth or children’s project. I’ve spent more than half of my life serving on youth teams in a significant capacity.

I was serving church youth groups part-time during Bible College (which I attended straight from 6th Form College), and I started working as a full-time Youth and Children’s Minister from the 20th August 2007.

In some very real ways, youth ministry is all I know. It’s a fundamental part of who I am and it runs deep in my blood.

It’s hard to explain, then, just how fundamentally challenging it has been to the very heart of who I am, that I’ve not been to an in-person youth project in almost six months.

That’s six months without regular in-person connection with the young people I’ve spent years specifically developing projects for.

I’ve still been running online youth projects, connecting with young people one-to-one, and providing resources, but (as we all have come to terms with now), that’s just not the same.

I am a youth minister. That’s who I am. That’s been my whole life. Maybe one day I’ll do something else, but that doesn’t seem to be likely any time soon. This is what God has always called me to do.

Sometimes there’s ghastly gossip, or cut-throat complaints, or self-righteous rants, and it’s like getting a sucker punch to the gut. You want to grab the person by the shoulders and yell, ‘don’t you get that this is my whole life that you’re inexpertly taking a blunt scalpel to!’

It’s not that simple though, of course. Youth work lifers are rarely seen. For most people it’s either an add-on to an already full life or a waiting room for a different venture. For me, and for others like me, however, it’s all we’ve ever done. This has occupied more of my life than any other activity.

Of course, the reality though, is I’m not fundamentally a youth worker. That’s not the truest version of the story. The true story is that I’m a child of the King. I belong to Christ, and that is where my identify fundamentally and essentially lies. I minister (as a verb) but that’s not who I am. I am a Christian, a follower of Jesus, and that’s my single calling. I’m His. This is the real thing behind the thing that I’ve needed to hold onto throughout this last six months. I’m His before I do anything. I’ll need to remember that tonight.

Tonight, will be my first in-person youth meeting in almost six months.

We’ve dotted every proverbial risk-assessment-i and crossed every socially-distanced-t. We are really and raring to go.

I can’t wait to see people again, because ‘youth worker’ is in my blood.

But in true form, I don’t go tonight as a youth worker, I go as a child of the King, to serve and love his people as much as I’m able – in His strength – to do.

So please pray for me tonight – but also pray for the youth work lifers! Pray for us to remain faithful to God, joyful in hope, patient in the storms, and effective in sharing Jesus with young people.

Thanks folks!