Confessions of a Youth Leader Before a Mission Trip

As a student, I loved mission trips. They were some of my most formative experiences, and though they were tiring and at times emotional, I think back on them with fondness. I made friends, some of whom I corresponded with for some time afterwards, and had so much respect for the leaders. They were Adults, in charge, and, I assumed had their lives put together, spiritually and otherwise.

Now, as I get ready to go on my first mission trip in several years—this time, as a leader—I realize how mistaken I must’ve been about my leaders. All my feelings about this trip, of nervous excitement and wondering if everyone will get along and if God will break in like I’m sort of hoping he might and secretly crossing my fingers that I won’t have to mow lawns, feel much more like those of a teenager than of an Adult. Except now I have the added responsibility of having to actually sorta kinda be in charge of things on top of it all.

I think it escaped me that my leaders were real people too. Sure, I heard them talk about their jobs or their families or what God had been teaching them, but I never stopped to really think about them as human beings. They were just leaders. Now, as I stand on the other side, I am entirely aware of my very humanness. I would so much like to be able to set aside all my own feelings about the trip and focus 110% on doing these service projects as best as possible and making sure it’s a great experience for the students, but there’s so much ME getting in the way. Once I’m actually there, I imagine my priorities will shift—out of necessity somewhat, but also, I hope, out of God correcting me as I move along throughout the week.

But that’s part of it too. As much as I think I’d like to have God blow me away with the ways he shows up, it kind of terrifies me too. It’s been a while since I’ve felt God in a big way, and I hardly remember what it’s like. I’ve put God into a corner, where I expect him to act in predictable ways that don’t unnerve me, but I’m standing on the edge of a time where I suspect he very well might blow the whole room, much less that corner, to bits. Which I want, only without the uncomfortable unsettling that goes with it. But I don’t think I can have one without the other.

Part of me wishes I could take this all a bit less seriously, but I simply can’t–and really, I’m not sure I’m supposed to. I am a real person, and these are real, live students I’ll be hanging out with. We’ll be working on actual houses and lawns and parks that are lived in and run on and played in by actual people. We’re going with the mindset that a real God is going to show up for all these  people in very real ways. There’s a weightiness to all of it.

I wish I had a neat, tidy ending to this post, but the rest has yet to be lived. I’m going to have to figure this out as I go.

Til next time…

~Brianna!~

p.s. Have any tips for a leader about to go on a mission trip?

Confessions of a Youth Leader: Some Things Never Change

I have never been good at sports.

Gym class was always my least favorite, especially the days when we had to play basketball. Being the kid who was picked last for a team was not a cutesy way of suggesting someone was left out, but an actual concern of my daily life. My childhood wasn’t terrible because of it, but anything involving sports are certainly not my rosiest memories of days of yore.

Now I’m a youth leader at my church. The thing I forgot about middle and high school youth group is that it, at some point or another, always seems to involve some sort of athletic activities. Games involving throwing, dodging, ducking, dipping, diving, and catching are quite commonplace.

And, despite my additional years of life, my athletic ability has not increased accordingly.

If anything, it may have gotten worse.

Not being forced to participate in sports I don’t like anymore, when I do exercise, it’s activities I can do by myself, sometimes in the comfort of my own living room where not another living soul needs to see me. Basketball? Rollerblading backwards across a gym floor with a group of my peers? Wiffleball? No thanks.

But the funny thing about being a youth leader and not a student is that I’m no longer there for me. Yes, I’m there because I choose to be, but not with my own wants and needs specifically in mind.

Photo Credit: Flickr User seanmfreese, Creative Commons

I recently posted on Facebook that sometimes I think I get just as much, if not more, out of youth group than the students do.

While my athletic ability has not increased, my insecurity about it has not decreased nearly as much as I thought it might have. A bit, but certainly not entirely. It turns out the lessons we talk about with middle and high schoolers aren’t just relevant for them, but also for me.

Because some things never change. Like the fact that I am still kind of terrible at catching and throwing things or anything involving needing to get from one location to another with any sort of speed. 

I am also, as I learned this past Saturday, terrible at climbing out of pits filled with foam blocks.

But it’s not about me. I might still feel insecure about my lack of athletic ability, but I’m not a youth leader to feel good about myself. If I feel a little insecure myself, but students feel comfortable and welcome, that’s what it takes. And in ways, it’s a good reminder of what middle and high school me often felt like, and what students might feel like too.

Maybe my own insecurity is exactly what helps me understand theirs.

Til next time…

~Brianna!~

p.s. Have you learned anything in your experience as a youth leader?

Youth Ministry is Terrifying

Being a youth leader is terrifying.

Am I allowed to say that?

This past weekend I attended a youth retreat where the theme was “Identity in Christ.” It feels a bit coincidental (though I suspect it may be, to use Christian-speak, “a God thing”), considering it’s a topic I’ve been thinking, writing, and hearing about in several places about lately. For the middle and high schoolers I spent time with this weekend though, “Who am I?” is an even bigger question than it is for me as a 23-almost-24-year old.

And the truth is, I don’t know what to tell them. I think “finding your identity in Christ” is a starting point, but the particulars of how that looks in everyday life are a very different story–which isn’t a very pretty, wrapped-with-a-bow answer to hand middle and high schoolers. It’s kind of what I want to tell them about all of life–“You just sort of figure it out as you go,” which isn’t a very good answer for a lot of things, much less how to find your identity in Christ.

But it’s the only answer I have right now.

Try as hard as I may, I will never get the answers “perfectly right” in conversations with the students in our youth group, or with anyone else.

I might say dumb stuff, or say the wrong words at the wrong time, or not say the right words at the right time, and I might not have the answers that will satisfy their questions.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be saying this, or at least shouldn’t be posting it on the Internet. Students or their parents or their friends may be reading these words, going, “Why should I trust this leader who doesn’t have her own stuff together?” Or “This is the girl who’s hanging out with my child and supposedly helping shape them in their walk with Christ?”

It’s not a perfect picture, but it is an honest one.

The questions students in my youth group are asking themselves are the same ones I am, in some way or another, asking myself. Sure, I have a few more years of life experience and some college knowledge in my head, but that only goes so far.

It’s one of the most terrifying parts about any type of formal ministry, and also about relationships in general–when we look at ourselves, it is so easy to think we have nothing to offer. My own stories are not be the same ones they’re living, and it can make mine feel inadequate.

But I’m trying to be reminded of what I do have to offer.

I can listen.

I can accept.

I can show up.

Maybe the simple act of showing up is the most important one of all.

And while my own stories will not be the exact same ones they’re living, they may have similar strands.

So yes, being a youth leader is kind of terrifying. I like to know the answers, and if I don’t know them I like to be able to find them–but life doesn’t come with an answer key. In the absence of perfect answers though, I can offer what I do have, and rest assured that God is big enough to use even that.

Til next time…

~Brianna!~

p.s. How have you dealt with feeling inadequate for ministry?