A New Kind of Youth Ministry

We had another fantastic week at Merge. Youth Ministries attended from all over the US and Canada — Alaska, Texas, California, Massachusetts, Toronto, etc. We even had a couple of mates with us from Australia! Here is a comment from one of the youth workers who attended…

Our time at MERGE has become an Ebenezer that is set up where we can look
back & say, “see God met us there!”

I guess what really struck me was that our kids finally got to the spot
where they were actually working through & talking about the things that
really mattered. How to love & reach out to their friends, What it means to
live as a community of believers, working as a team to do more than serve
themselves, who God really is, what He is like & how much He loves them.

That is good stuff…

I had the privilege each morning to share some thoughts on spiritual formation with the participating youth workers. That opportunity led to a number of very good conversations about our integrated journey of life and faith. I was deeply encouraged by the number of youth workers who are really thinking hard about how to better shepherd their students to live, love and lead in the way of Jesus.

I have posted the following prayer before. But as I drove home from Merge I was reminded of it and found it fitting…

A Prayer for Today’s Youth

“…Be present especially with the young who must choose between many voices, Help them to know how much an old world needs their youth and gladness. Help them to know that there are words of truth and healing that will never be spoken unless they speak them, and deeds of compassion and courage that will never be done unless they do them. Help them never to mistake success for victory or failure for defeat. Grant that they may never be entirely content with whatever bounty the world my bestow upon them, but that they may know at last that they were created not for happiness but for joy, and that joy is to him alone who, sometimes with tears in his eyes, commits himself in love to thee and his brothers. Lead them and all thy world ever deeper into the knowledge that finally all men are one and that there can never really be joy for any until there is joy for all. In Christ’s name we ask it and for his sake. Amen.”

–From Frederick Buechner’s The Hungering Dark