Touching Lives
Several years ago I attended a youth event where there was a guest speaker of some importance in the world of youth ministry. This gentleman’s sole vocation is to spread God’s love and message to High School aged youth. He spoke eloquently of the importance of sharing Christ’s love and salvation to the youth who gathered for this event and the importance of them sharing this message with their peers. He never mentioned, outright, the word ‘evangelism,’ but this was certainly the core intent of his message.
He told beautiful stories that offered illustrations to the importance of sharing the good news. Moving stories with metaphors and analogies that brought his message home, but his illustrations came directly from email messages I’ve read many times through the years—some of which may be as much as 10 years old. Nothing in his message was new to me or to these youth gathered to hear a good word. Not one of his stories came from his own life experiences. These stories had been shared and recycled for many, many years: great stories with tremendous meaning, but old and worn-out stories, nonetheless. I can understand the importance of sharing good stories and passing the wisdom of the ages on to new generations. After all, isn’t the message within the Biblical texts precisely this?—not only are we the recipients of sacred stories, but we have at our fingertips poems and songs, laments and prayers, as well as the historical stories and wisdom literature of God’s people through the ages. The part that I struggle with is the question of, “was this his best offering to these kids?”
When we are called into service for another, we are called into a work that is from God and blessed by God. Why would we ever consider giving anything but our very best to those we serve? Perhaps our best is a subjective term and certainly up for debate among those like me who watch from the sidelines. But as I sat in that room on that day so long ago, looking around at the youth who were gathered there and knowing the difficult journey that is a part of being a teenager I could not help but feel sad because they weren’t offered a message more real and relevant to their lives.
As we have traveled these weeks through this Children’s Sabbath Prayer Vigil we’ve considered many ways of loving and caring for children and youth. We’ve taken on many tasks to make positive impacts on the lives of the children within our congregation and community. We’ve committed ourselves to living lives dedicated to children and youth, that we might be a blessing in their lives so they may go out into the world to be a blessing to others. As you go about your days and years to come, consider what it is you give to the children and youth in your lives. Is it your very best: Or is it the tired, old, worn-out and recycled message that only gives lip-service to those things we all ought to be passionate about? Sometimes it may be a little of both, depending on what life’s circumstances are when we’re in the midst of living. I can say without hesitation the times in my life where I’ve given the very best of myself to others—especially to children—the rewards were not only gifts to these children, but were my very own as well. My rewards were 10, 20 even a hundredfold.
Blessings,
Tracy