The Main Thing

While I am proud I have been posting here for over 1000 days now, there is one problem that is becoming a concern.  I can't remember everything I have posted anymore.  I don't mind intentionally re-posting on occasion, but I would like to know I am doing it.  Between the sheer number of posts and the fact that my mind is over 52 years old, I am realizing I have to pay close attention to anything that feels a little too familiar.  Today was one of those days, and as I looked back through some my earlier posts, I was reminded of just how often I have written about the importance of relationships and fellowships in youth ministry.  And you know what?  I am going to do it again...


Back on May 30, 2010, I wrote a post called Uncredited Glory.  In it I quoted the great Maya Angelou- "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."  Over the past two and a half years I have continued to discover that this is absolutely true about student ministry.  I have reconnected with dozens of students who have so many kind words for me, and almost none of them involve what they learned or what we studied.  They can remember trips and retreats, but what they remember about them are the people they shared them with.  They remember worshiping and singing together. Together!  What they really remember, and what they always say to me, is that they felt loved. They felt loved by me and by the other adults who served in ministry beside me.  They felt loved by one another and built some amazing, lasting relationships.  And most importantly, they felt loved by Jesus.  And all of these years later, those things remain.  When you remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, youth ministry works.  It's not rocket science.  It's relationships.


Out of all of the kind words, encouragement and loving support that has been shared with me in the comment section of this blog, I have to admit there is one that brings tears to my eyes every time I read. It was left on that May 30, 2010 post by someone with the initials KW.  I confess I do not know who that is.  If it was true for even a small percentage of the students who passed through my ministries over the years, then I did my job.  The writer said, "I never entered a room you were in when I did not feel loved. When you are 13-17 years old and don't really like yourself, that is an amazing thing. Thank you, CJ!"  Isn't that the main thing in youth ministry- to insure that those often hard to love creatures we know as teenagers know the love of God whose name is Jesus, and that they experience that love through relationships with us and through each other?  It has been said that "Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship."  We need to start doing ministry like we believe that!  Only then will the youth we serve find way to pass that love on to the world.  Let me close with this paraphrase of Paul from his first letter to the church at Corinth: "Love never fails.  True friendships and relationships based in the love of Jesus shall not falter.  Theological knowledge and church doctrine will come and go. Great sermons will be forgotten.  Ski trips and locks in will pass. Soon the egg and armpit relay will be no more.  The things we learn as children often disappear as we become adults.  But these things never change and always remain- faith, hope and love.  And the greatest of these is love."  


I remain convinced that the best way to lead students into a relationship with our Savior is to simply show them his love through relationships you build with them and their friends.  Because it is true- The main thing is keep me the main thing the main thing. Or in other words, "It's all about Jesus..."


Because of Jesus,