Journal Entry

Normally I am submerged in the culture of youth pastors or even of teens themselves, or at least I had been for many years. These days I find life is full of sick family, a new wife (who is also sick), a college that has lost all appeal to me, Housework, pets, business, Church. I spend all my time on those things and still there is my job as a youth pastor. Tonight I took a break from everything to hit the internet and check some of the blogs that I used to enjoy reading. One of the first posts I came to was an anonymous art blog, that I am sure many people read because it is one of the most popular blogs in the world. On today's blog there was a post that I have copied and pasted here below:

Now at first glance if you read it slowly, you assume that there is a troubled teenager in a youth group somewhere. Then however, you notice the line at the bottom, "I'm the youth pastor.".

I remember one night in youth group a few years ago as a teenager stood up following a youth service and said something very similar to what this guy is saying. He told us that because of what God has done in his life through this youth group his suicidal thoughts have completely gone away. The mood that this art gives off however is quite different.

Youth group for me has at times been a safe haven from the crazy busy, sometimes unhappy parts of my life. On a Wednesday night I offer my students a similar escape from their world as we journey into some creative biblical world that unlike the world we think we are living in, has a form of perfect justice. It is a world where things just seem to make sense and work like they are supposed to. It is in these moments that all the trivial things that seemed to be world shattering to us before we entered these doors falls away. A new life is spoken into being as we take an hour to seek something "other". As the service comes to a close, something has changed for the students since they walked in that night. They leave with a hope that maybe, just maybe this new understanding that they received will make some sort of a positive difference for them when tomorrow they wake up and go back to a world that seems to have forgotten God. They go back to a world that is "Broken". This broken world that they live in makes no sense sometimes and things just don't seem fair. My heart breaks just thinking of the things my students have to go through each and every week. I totally understand how some youth pastor somewhere can make such a statement as in the art above. If I had the choice, every single day would be a Wednesday. There is hope in the Word of God. The world doesn't have to be the way it is right now. Sometimes even the youth pastor has to be able to admit that they are hurting. The truth is, it is an incredible responsibility to be the one who delivers the message of hope consistently each week. I have become dependent upon not only hearing the message of hope but watching the transformation that is birthed from proclaiming the Gospel. Truth be told, in my mind every day seems like a Wednesday!

So life got crazy for me but I won't let it overrun me. Until next time -Just Jon