10 Things I Miss About Student Ministry

FUMC-Kissimmee Youth Ministry Team, Christmas Party 1998
at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort

I've been out of youth ministry for nearly 5 years now, and not a day passes that I don't yearn for it.  Today I want to share with you 10 things that I miss.  These are not the general "I miss the kids" or "I miss seeing students come to know Jesus."  Of course I miss those things.  These are a bit more specific.  For those of you who were students or volunteers in one of my groups, I hope these will remind you of some great times gone by.  For those of you who currently work with teenagers, I hope these will urge you to treasure the moments you share with them.  Here we go:

1. I miss praying for a group, loading the vans, and cranking up the traditional trip starting tune- Bohemian Rhapsody!  Even though they were a tremendous amount of work, I miss every minute of every trip.  I was a trip junkie, and I have so many incredible memories.
2. I miss sitting in the youth room an hour before anyone else arrived on Sunday or Wednesday or Monday- praying for that night's program and the students who would make it special.  I miss the buzz that happened every week as students arrived and waited to see what surprises awaited them.  And I miss the overwhelming excitement I would feel at every church when someone new would come through the door!
3. I miss sending out the famous Summer Packets that were always loaded with contests- and then waiting for the Youth Group Hotline to start ringing off the hook or the hits to start piling up on the website with excited students trying to win prizes- most of them worthless.
4. I miss school holidays when my office would be so full of students that I couldn't get anything done- those were some of my best days.
5. I miss those moments- you know the ones- when all of you realize that you will never, ever forget what just happened to you.  They are etched forever on your brain.
6. I miss sitting around the table with Youth Ministry Teams, brainstorming the wildest, craziest ideas we could come up with, and then running them through our Purpose Statement to see if they would help us accomplish our goals. I LOVED my volunteers!  Oh- and I loved our Christmas parties!  We had great YMT Christmas events as well as wonderful youth group parties!!!
7. I miss sitting around the table in a restaurant sharing a meal and talking about life, understanding in those precious moments that we were bound together in God's love. Our relationships ran much deeper than that of just student and leader.  Many of those former youth are still some of my best friends.
8. I miss standing in front of a youth group playing my guitar and listening to them sing, for fun and for worship.  I can still feel youth rooms shaking as we rocked out to Lahina.  If I close my eyes I can still hear groups split into parts and singing Prince of Peace & Sing Alleluia.  And I got to stand up front and soak it all in...
9. I miss those moments at events and on trips when you manage to surprise your students in a big way, and they look at you with eyes that say "I can't believe you did this for us..."
10. And finally, I miss the phone calls.  The ones in the middle of the night after something had gone terribly wrong.  The ones when a student had just been dumped.  The ones when they just heard an old song on the radio and they know I would know what it was.  The ones to tell me that they just made the team or just got a new car.  And especially, the ones when I knew Jesus was working in their lives.  I miss being someone they knew they could count on.

I could go on and on, and I probably will at some point.  But that's all for today.  I'm off to pray for a whole bunch of old friends...

Because of Jesus,