It is Like Breathing

Creating space needs to be like breathing. I know what you are thinking; this does not make sense at all. And as of now, I am not sure it is really supposed to, but bear with me.

The other day I was talking to a student about life, family, and school. As the conversation went on I became aware that there was something that was not being said. Going with my gut I asked, “Is everything okay?”

It was as if I had opened a box to something that someone had tried to keep hidden. The student started to tell me how overwhelmed s/he was feeling, about school, family life, sports teams, and even church.

As the student stood there in the middle of an outdoor mall, holding a sugar-filled drink, I could see that s/he was holding back the tears that were trying to force their way out of his/her closed heart.

Fast-forward to four days later, I am setting up what can only be explained as a preschool room by day, turned youth room by night, which will soon be bustling with high school students. As one student after another enters the room, I feel as if each step that each one takes is heavy-laden with something unspoken.

I am still not sure if this feeling was some divine reality that God’s Spirit was speaking to me, or if my emotions from four days earlier were being stirred.
Then it hit me, what have we done to our students? In youth ministry we constantly talk about “creating the space for students.” Yet today I realized, maybe all of that space we had attempted to create was on our terms, not God’s.

These thoughts continued clouding my mind as I left a meeting with a couple of youth pastors and para-church leaders in the city that I do ministry in. As I was walking out I asked a friend, “Where was Nick* today?” His response was quite telling, “some people just can’t fit this into their schedule.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all about schedules. In fact, I try to religiously keep to my routine on a daily basis, but I began to wonder, what if God doesn’t keep to our schedules?

In Acts 2 the followers of the resurrected Jesus were sitting in a room, simply waiting for God to move. They were just waiting, nothing else.

As much as I joke with my wife about being a “friendly person,” because she was raised within the Friends denomination, I think the Mennonites might have been on to something. You see, a practice of the early Friends churches was to enter into the church building and sit, waiting to hear from God. Once someone was moved to speak they spoke, and then the silence continued.

As a Lutheran I have heard over and over again about how “high church” is too ritualistic, but I ask, what church is not? Do we not all have our rituals, whether it involves the Lord’s Prayer and weekly confession or not.

Now back to my interaction with that student: it turns out that somewhere down the line this student’s life had become so scheduled and planned that s/he no longer felt that s/he could be a teen. S/he did not have the time to have fun, to laugh with friends, to sit and watch TV, to sit and do nothing, or even sleep. It is no wonder so many students live out their relationships with others over text message and Facebook. These are the only modes in which they can communicate with their friends since schoolwork, sports, clubs, activities, the expectations of adults in their life, and might I even say “church,” have robbed them of their time to just “be."

I have no idea what it might look like to create space for teens to experience God. In reality there are probably very qualified people to comment on that, but something I do know; allowing time and space for teens to be teens is just as important as breathing, because without it, our teens will die.

*The name has been changed for the protection of the individual.