A Letter of Hope. Pastoring Your Students Who Are Now In College

A Hand Written Letter 

A few months ago I walked to my box in the church office to discover a letter addressed to me by a student in her first year of college. As I grabbed the letter, I saw a drawing of “Sonic, the uni-pony,” a beloved mystical creature she drew constantly. Automatically, I smiled because I knew who sent it.

This student is a teen who I was close to while she was in high school and who grew a lot spiritually over her last few years of high school. She was on our student leadership team, involved at the Christian club on her high school campus, and cared greatly for everyone in the youth ministry. In other words, she is one of those students you wish you could duplicate and have in every class of students. Now away at college, I had not talked to her for a while. While I thought about calling her or texting her for a “life-update,” the situations in front of me somehow always drowned out my opportunities to catch up with her. 

As I read the letter I could not help but smile; the words of her letter where like talking to her in person. Her personality leaped off the paper and I could hear her joy for this new phase of life, but also feel her struggle to find time for God in her new schedule or even find a church with no car in a big city.

When I got to the bottom of the page I saw the invitation, “write back soon!” Those three words started a speeding train of thoughts in my brain. What will I write? How will I respond? How do I say thank you for her service to our group while she was in high school?

Soon my thoughts turned to wondering, Did I do enough to help this college student on her journey as a first semester freshman? Did our long conversations about faith life after school over her last year of high school helped her at all?  I started to ask the “Sticky-Faith” question of what would this girl’s faith life look like two, three, or even four years into college. Is there anything I could write to help and encourage her spiritual journey? Then the curse of my responsibility hit me like a board in the face as I thought to myself: I would do anything for this college student, for every one of my teens, to never walk away from the faith.

Pastoring From Afar

Over the last few months I have been reading through the letters of Paul. As I was reading, thinking, and praying one night, something in the introduction to Paul’s letter to the church in Thessalonica jumped out at me. I read, “We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3).

Paul spent weeks, months, and even years with many of the beloved churches he helped to plant or pastor. Then Paul moved on, going to the next group of people who God called him to minister to, but his heart never parted from the ones he was called to minister to. He continued to remember those he cared for in his prayers and continued to be involved in their lives as much as he could considering physical separation.

This reflection made me drastically aware of a reality that I had been feeling since many of my old high school students moved away to college; I did not know how to minister to those who where not physically present with me. I could tell someone else what to do if asked, I knew all the right answers and many cool ideas, but I did not know how to be a pastor to my students when they were far away from me.

As I continued to read 1 and 2 Thessalonians, I saw a group of people who felt stuck in a middle place, as if they were trapped between the now and not yet of the Kingdom. This in-between state caused fear in the hearts of the church body in Thessalonica. They had so much fear that they were scared that Christ had returned and left them and they had somehow missed the Kingdom.

The in-between of college kids

A few months before students went off to college, I was sitting with a few of our students—including the letter writer—at  In ‘N’ Out after church. As conversations bounced around the circles of teens like pinballs, I looked over at this teen that was about to head off to college and saw her staring blankly at the group of teens in front of her. Out of nowhere she posed the question to everyone and no one at the same time, “What am I going to do with out this group?”

In the letter from my college student, I could not help but feel the same question she asked at In ‘N’ Out lingering underneath the words on the page. Even after a year of conversations and a “Senior Transition Class,” the in-between of college life hit and many students felt as though Jesus was absent and as if Christ left when they moved off to college.

During Christmas break, I soon learned that despite all the conversations I had with many of the teens before they left for college, no one had found a church home and few really felt that Jesus was involved in their college experiences. For them, following Jesus looked more like not partying, than an active relationship where God was found in everyday life.

A word of hope.

As I continued to read through 1 Thessalonians, I started to see a different picture of what walking next to my students in college looked like. I began to see that my job was not to play “The Church or Christian Club Price is Right!” or “Let’s Make a Church and/or Christian Club Deal!” My job was and is not to be a moral compass for their actions while in college; my job is to help them dive into the emptiness of their faith life and find a God who brings hope out of nothingness.

As I sat with another student over Winter break, the student told me about the drinking and partying that s/he took up while in the first semester of college. As I sat with the student, I asked one question, “where do you see God?”

The student was put off a little by the question, sat back and asked, “What do you mean?”

I clarified, “Where did you see God during your first semester at college?”

As our conversation continued, the student began to point to places where God helped the student while s/he was drunk. S/he pointed to conversations s/he had with atheist friends. The student replied, “I think I did all this stuff because I wanted to run from and heal from all stuff, you know.”

As I sat there, I did not get on the student for drinking or not going to church, I simply sat and asked what role s/he thought God played in this healing?

My reflection.

Reflecting on my reading of 1 Thessalonians and my time with students during the Winter Break, God showed me that pastoring students during their college years looks like doing one thing: working to encourage students to find God in the in-betweenness of college.

As I sat down to write the letter back to my college student, I could not help but feel a little like Paul. I longed to be in the physical presence of this student and to walk with college students through their daily life as I did when they were in High School. Yet as I wrote the letter, I wrote a little differently than I might have before; I did not answer questions or give direction, I simply encouraged this student and pointed to a God who is found in this time of life and longs to bring wonderful things out of this in-between stage of life.

What does Eschatology have to do with Youth Ministry? Everything!

              A few months ago I was at the National Youth Workers Convention (NYWC) down in San Diego. As with last year, I tried to make it to each of the Theological Panels that I could and I came away realizing that NYWC has shifted me. In earlier years, I loved going to the seminars on things like, “How to run a healthy Middle School Program,” but now I love thinking more theologically about ministry, really getting down to the bedrock foundation and asking questions such as, what does the way I run the Middle School Program theologically communicate to the students?

            One of my favorite theological topics has always been eschatology, or the study of end things. You can imagine my excitement when I discovered one of the theological panels was entitled, “What does eschatology [end things]  have to do with Youth Ministry?” I much anticipated the opportunity to dialog with many great thinkers in youth ministry as I entered the room. 

Personally, I have always prided myself on thinking about youth ministry through an eschatological lens. It is, in fact, one reason I named this blog, “redeeming creation.”  When I first kicked off this blog after I was done with seminary, my vision was to write about the hope of a God who loves and is working to redeem his creation. Since I beginning the blog, I have struggled to maintain consistent writing due to a lot of professional transition and focused time needed within my own ministry.

While at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, I have learned about myself and youth and family ministry, as well as my vision for ministry in general, and my vision continues to circle around my hope for the God of a Kingdom of hope to break into the lives of families and teens and to reveal his promise and grace. I believe that only when God does this can communities, families, and individuals be transformed.

Over the weekend at the NYWC, God reminded me of a forgotten truth: eschatology does not have just a little bit to do with youth ministry,  it has everything to do with youth ministry. As Chap Clark, professor of Youth Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary, points out, today’s teens are in a different place than any other teenage generation has ever been. They live inside of what Clark calls, “the world beneath.” In this world, teens struggle to find themselves amongst the pressure placed on them by adults in their lives, peer pressure, consumerism, and uncertainty of hope in the future.

            Take a student of mine for example, who we will call Jim* . Jim lives in a single parent home where he struggles to get by as he works to find what it means be an individual. He feels pressured by his parent to do everything and be as good at everything as his older brother. Therefore, he participates in all the sports he can as he tries to meet his parent’s expectation. When he is not doing sports, performances, or whatever else his parent has planned for him, he does his homework. Many nights, he stays up past midnight to just get enough done to maintain his B+ average. Other nights, he feels like he has to care for his own parent, who seems stuck in a place of lament toward the family’s life situation.

            Jim is stuck in a world where everyone is telling him what to have hope in. His parent wants him to have hope in his educational future telling him that if continues do participate in sports and gets his grades up, he will get into that name school. His coaches tell him that he is angry and does not try hard enough, so now his playing time has been cut. Jim and the opposite sex really like each other and he sometimes finds hope in superficial relationships and in things he knows should be reserved for marriage. He comes to church when he can, but if you ask him, he will tell you that church is one of the only places he feels he can be himself. He will tell you there is something about the community that is just “different.” Yet, recently Jim has started to question whether God exists or not because he struggles to see God at work in his world, family, or even personal life.

            As I sat in the theological panel on what eschatology has to do with Youth Ministry, I could not help but think of Jim and how far too many of my youth group students are just like Jim, whether their parents realize it or not. Many of today’s teens are without hope, and the adults in their lives—even faithful Christian parents—tell them to place their hope in things that will pass away.

            There is this eschatological idea that has been sold by “pop-Christianity,” that I refer to as “left behind” theology, or dispensational theology in which God deal with humanity differently depending on the specific time period creation finds itself.  The issue with this eschatology is that it believes that most important question that a person can answer is, “If you were to die tonight, where would you go?” The issue with this type of eschatology is that it only deals with a small part of the problem. It only offers kids a future hope; it does not offer an eschatology that provides identity, calling, and hope now.

The Kingdom that Jesus preached is far bigger than a kingdom that only exists in some future reality; it is a Kingdom that is here now, but not yet. This type of Kingdom is different for four reasons: it gives them hope and grace now, it becomes a part of who kids are now, it calls kids to a purpose, and it encourages kids to see and stand in hope today.

Hope

For many reasons, adolescence can be one of the most hopeless times in a person’s life. Many teens deal with struggles that no one should deal with from problems with parents who turn to them for support in the midst of heartache, issues with abuse or bullying from their peers, and/or the pressure put on them by the adults in their communities. With all of this on the shoulders of today’s teens, many of them struggle to maintain resiliency in the face of these issues. The beauty about the kingdom of God is that it not only provides hope in the future, but also provides hope in the present.

Look at the ministry of Jesus, wherever Jesus was, he provided hope and grace to those entrapped by evil, death, and sin. By casting out demons, healing the sick, raising the dead, and forgiving sins, he demonstrated the reality of the Kingdom here on Earth. At the end of his life, Jesus shows true hope when he overcomes death, evil, and sin in his resurrection. In ministry we are called to preach and demonstrate the same message of hope and grace that God shows throughout the ministry of Jesus. People need to hear a message of hope and grace demonstrated through a Kingdom and love that is bigger then whatever binds them.

When God breaks into the life of a person, God fills him or her with the Holy Spirit. God gives his Spirit to his followers so that they might live out the Kingdom of hope now. Before Jesus resurrected up into heaven, he brought his disciples together and promised that his followers would be “baptized in the Holy Spirit.” This is why Paul states in Romans 5, “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” As followers of Jesus, we have been given hope not only in the future, but hope now, hope in whatever these teens are going through and grace to rescue them from whatever might be holding them back from God.

Identity

            The key struggle of adolescents is “who am I?” The grace and hope that they find in Christ offer them an answer to that question. Instead of telling kids that they are just a soul that needs to wait around for Jesus to come back, eschatology calls kids to see themselves as redeemed children of God now, not in some future reality. This eschatological reality should affect the way they begin to define themselves as they figure out how their identity as a child of God works within their personal gifting and calling.

           

Constantly, I try to reiterate to kids that they are foremost a child of God, not just a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, a criminal, or a John Hughes high school stereotype. There is nothing they can do or not do, that will take this identity away from them. God has given them this out of grace and love, not as a result of their works or abilities, a vastly counter-cultural message in today’s world of create who you want to be by your own work. Today’s teens need to know that their identity is not based in what they do or fail to do, but in God holding their identities in his hand now and forevermore, not just in some future reality whether Christians “rapture” into heaven or students get into their dream colleges.

Calling

Since teens have been redeemed by God’s grace, they are then called by God to live out their identities as children of God now, not just in the future. Martin Luther talked a lot about calling and gifting. He believed that everyone was not only called and gifted to serve God as priests within the Kingdom of God, but also that each person had a specific calling that worked alongside the passions and career that each person is called into. As David Kinnanman points out in You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving the Church and Rethinking Church, many young teens and emerging adults do not see how their faith connects to their careers and/or interests. Therefore, when they enter into post-high school life or career training, they are no longer connected to their faith because they have not been taught how their faith has shaped, called, and gifted them. Training teens that as they grow, God desires to use them to manifest his Kingdom by providing them with specific gifts that work within their individual passions and career calling. When teens begin to understand this reality it helps them see how their faith goes beyond themselves and high school or middle school. 

For instance, I had a conversation with a high school senior last year who has the desire to be a fashion journalist. In fact, she got into one of the best journalist schools in the nation and will likely see her dreams fulfilled. One Sunday she admitted to me that she did not think God would want her to go into her long-desired career because it was “too worldly.” After asking some pointed questions and processing with her, she began to see her passion for fashion and journalism in a new light. She saw how God might be able to use her future career to manifest God’s kingdom in a way that no pastor ever could. Further, she began to see her own gifting and passions that were given to her by so that she can use them for his Kingdom throughout her career.

Pictures of Kingdom Hope

During the NYWC theological seminar, someone asked the question, “what happens when teens can’t see the hope God gives them?” Amy Jacober, youth ministry writer and academic, had some great suggestions, but I think she really hit home when she encouraged the audience to invite kids to imagine hope now through pointing to what she called, “unexplainable holy moments.” These are the moments when you are sitting with a group of kids and everyone just starts laughing for no reason or when you are out surfing and you cannot explain it, but the sunset is extra beautiful that night. In those moments of life, she encouraged us to point to the glimpse of the coming Kingdom that might be showing through in this “unexplainable holy moment.”

Amy also encouraged us to stop and point out where God is or has moved in times of hope during camps, mission trips, or retreats. As Andrew Root explains in the book Theological Turn In Youth Ministry, these moments can be pictures of the hope to come. For instance, I always have teens tell me at the end of mission trips or camps, “I do not want to go back to real life. It is so easy to follow Jesus here.” Others have said to me, “I just wish I could serve God every day like this.” It is in these moments that the Kingdom of God is manifesting itself in a concrete way in the lives of adolescents. When this happens we are presented with a perfect opportunity to explain the reality of the now, but not yet Kingdom of God. We can tell teens that in those moments God is providing us with a small glimpse of the hope to come. Even better, God desires to continue to work through you when you get “down the mountain” to show his Kingdom of hope to others as you continue to live life as you have during this week at camp or on a mission trip.

We things get really bad, Amy suggested that the best thing we can do is to come alongside teens and provide hope for them when they are hopeless. This looks a lot like something that happened within one our youth group’s middle school small groups a few weeks ago. One of our girls had been a victim of bullying at school. During small group, she could not hold it in any longer, and she broke down crying. As I came out of my small group, I looked over and saw one of our High School volunteer leaders, partnering in leadership with an adult small group volunteer, with her arm around the crying middle school student. The high school student sat there for forty-five minutes as the middle school girl continued to cry. I talked with the girl’s mom about what her daughter was dealing with at school and helped coach the mom on how to address the situation with her daughter’s school. At this time, the high school volunteer said nothing and continued to let the Middle School girl cry. In these moments, this high school girl provided hope to a middle school girl who felt hopeless.

Sometimes, the best thing we can do to minister to teens is to be there for them as they struggle to find the hope that God gives in the midst of a messy world. When we do this, we become a concrete, incarnate picture of a God who provides hope and healing by empathizing with his creation’s suffering. At the same time, we are providing a picture of a God that will completely heal his people through wrapping them up into his Kingdom.

The End

            Jesus made many beautiful promises to his people. The best one was the promise that the Kingdom was here now, but not yet fulfilled. It is essential that the church helps today’s teens see that the Kingdom of God is here to provide them with a new identity, calls and gifts them to manifest the kingdom, and offer them hope. This is why our eschatology has everything to do with youth ministry, it provides and call teens to the hope promised to them in Christ.

            While not every topic on this blog will deal directly with eschatology or even youth ministry, the vision of this blog is to reflect, think, and write about what God is doing in my life and teaching me about ministry and the unfolding of his Kingdom in the world. I hope you will join me this year as I re-launch “Redeeming Creation.” May God bless you and reveal to you his Kingdom of hope that you might be a vision of God’s hope to those without in the world.

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*The name of the student was changed to protect the student.