the perfect youth ministry day

yesterday was the perfect youth ministry day. by this i don’t mean that everything about it was good. in fact, allot of what happened during the day wasn’t good at all. it was the perect youth ministy day because the events that happened during it display why youth ministry is the greatest of all ministries. here’s what happened.

8:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

i spoke at one of our school’s chapels – the elementary chapel. during this time i got the chance to try and help kids understand that even though JESUS may ask us to do things that sound odd to us, if we act in faith amazing things happen – i spoke about JESUS healing the man blind from birth by spitting on the groun and placing mud in his eyes. doing chapel for k through 5th grade is always allot of fun and this was no exception.

9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

i officiated at the funeral of a former youth whose husband and his family are also very important to me. the husband and wife were in a major car accident saturday morning. the wife was killed, the husband badly injured, and their child and a friend left the car uninjured. in the past i had been able to baptize her, then i was able to officiate their wedding, and finally i was the minister who dedicated their son. this family means allot to me and thus the funeral was not something that was easy for me. yet, i was also honored that the husband would ask me to do the funeral. i don’t like seeing people i love in pain, but i am very thankful to get to be one of the people who GOD uses to bring them comfort. i was able to see their pain first hand at the hospital waiting for the husband’s surgery to be finished and then later when i went with him to pick up the personal effects that were still in the badly damaged vehicle. i was so thankful that i got to be one of the people who comforted this family that i love.

2:00 p.m. till 5:45 p.m.

during this time i was focused on setting up and preparing for the view, our youth worship service. this included everything from setting up chairs, to decorating the student center for CHRISTmas, to practicing with the band, those who shall remain nameless, for the worship in music during the service. all of this involved working with youth to accomplish a common goal – of worship during the night.

6:00 p.m. till 7:15 p.m.

this is when the view went on. two things happened during this 1) we had a great worship service that even though i wasn’t speaking during this night, alan my assistant was, i did get to lead kids in helping to lead the service, and 2) i got to clean up puke. that’s right we had a kid “spew chunks” in the outside hall. we played a game at the beginning of worship tonight (something we do very rarely but this time it fit in with the message we were trying to convey and therefore we did it). we had a teen drink 52 ounces of egg nog. he tried to make it to the toilet after he had won the game but he didn’t quite make it. i decided to clean it up instead of asking one of the volunteer adults to do it.

7:30 p.m. till 8:30 p.m.

i hung out with teens just talking about things

8:45 p.m.

i made it home – wednesdays are usually a late night but i make up for this by staying home in the afternoon.

here’s why it was the perfect youth ministry day. there is no other ministry in which you could go from the very serious nature of a painful funeral to cleaning up puke. in fact, there is only one ministry in which it would be normal to consider going from such serious matters to such disgusting janitorial work. the only ministry in which this would be normal is youth ministry. youth ministry is the only ministry that would consider such extremes normal. this is why youth ministry is the greatest ministry in the world.