Yesterday as I got in my car to run to the store and grab some stuff for my wife for Valentines Day. As I started my car the radio came on broadcasting the usual FM setting, NPR. I was quickly surprised at the conversation that came over my stereo, as the interviewer asked the interviewee, “So, you send flower, notes, and even write songs for people who call and ask for them.” It turns out that for a small payment, you can send yourself flowers, love notes, or even a personal love song made by someone sitting behind a desk. As you might guess Valentines Day is one of the company’s largest moneymakers.
As the interview came to an end, my mind became a little sad. I thought about all of the people who would sit lonely in their homes, longing for any human connection. I thought about what brings someone to send himself or herself flower or a love note, just to feel loved. Then my mind took another turn, it drifted to my high school students who I sat with earlier that afternoon at a local restaurant. I could picture one girl sitting in the group texting her boyfriend, while another talking about how they wanted to ask a girl to be their valentine, then it came to me we are all looking for meaning in the form of intimacy.
This year our youth group has been asking the question, where does God’s story and yours collide? Behind this question is the assumption that God not only cares about our story, but also wants to affect it, to change it.
During a worship night a couple weeks ago, we put up two large pieces of art paper. One with the phrase “God Is,” and on the other “I am.” As the night came to an end, I got up and walked to the pieces of paper. What I saw when I read the phrases strung across that was both honest and beautiful. As I stepped back to get a better view of the large paper hung on the wall, at the center of the “I am” paper was a triangle with a circle around it. In the center of the of the triangle was the phrase, “child of God.”
Now, this phrase was no less or more beautiful then the other statements, but reading it I couldn’t help but smile, because in it I saw God’s movement. At some point along the way God had revealed himself in a powerful way that not only provided clarity, but meaning and definition. This person realized that at the center of the Godhead there is life, community, intimacy, and meaning.
I have to wonder if somehow we have missed the mark in youth ministry at how we communicate God’s intimate love. I think we have fallen prey to offering programs, not Christian community that flows out of the life of the Godhead, community that not only offers meaning, but intimacy.
Here is the scary reality, until we provide that life-giving community, students will look elsewhere. And to be honest, who can blame them.
For that reason, I end with a question. How is your ministry working to become a God bearing community, that offers a live giving community that flows out of the Godhead?
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