Youth Mentorship

Tuesday night James and I attended an informational meeting about becoming youth mentors for the Jr. and Sr. High ministry at Palm Valley Church. As I told you, I sent an email to the church's youth pastor Darius Sanders introducing ourselves and asking if we could get involved with the high school group. He wrote back saying that he'd love to have us on the team, but couldn't meet with everyone who wanted to volunteer individually, so he invited us to this dessert party/info meeting that he and his wife Nicole were hosting.

Admittedly, James and I were very nervous to just walk into Darius' house since we had never met him or his wife in person. However, they were very warm and welcoming and immediately made us feel at home. While we waited for the other people to arrive, he had us fill out a few forms so that the church would have our information and they could run a background check on us (something they do for anyone who will be working with children.) Then, after we all helped ourselves to cheesecake and cookies, Darius opened us up in prayer and began to share his views about youth ministry and to explain what we would be doing if we chose to go ahead with this rather large commitment.

I've just got to say that, as excited as I was about this whole thing before the meeting, I am SO much more excited now. I have been consistently impressed with the way that all of the leaders at Palm Valley think, and Darius was no exception. He said that the whole point of youth ministry is to build relationships with these young people and let them know that they are loved. Hopefully, once they see that we really care about them, they will care about what we are trying to teach them about God. I think that is the best way to minister to people. Too often well meaning people turn others off to Christianity because they focus so much on preaching that they make their audience feel like a project rather than an individual who is cared for no matter what. People are Priority - that's Darius' mantra.

As mentors, we would have two responsibilities. First, to attend one of their youth services on the weekends. making the kids feel welcome and encouraging them to get plugged in. Second, we will all be paired up with another leader or two so that we can lead a co-ed small group one night a week. This was very exciting because that means James and I will get to work together, and will be assigned our own group of high schoolers to invest in over the next several months!! Of course, since James is going to be very busy with flying and may not be able to make it to every small group, we will have at least one other leader working with us. We are kind of hoping that our friends Caleb and Jordan who are about to get married and move out here will want to step into that role but we'll have to see...

Anyway, what excited me most was that - in addition to being Bible Study leaders and volunteer helpers on Sundays - Darius really wanted to know what gifts or passions we had as individuals and wholeheartedly encouraged us to employ them as we serve these kids. That means that, in addition to building relationships and helping these kids grow in their faith (which is super exciting and fulfilling all on its own) I may have an opportunity to take pictures and make videos for them!! Turns out they are doing a series in July called "Jesus at the Box Office" (!!!) and I was able to give Darius some ideas about current movies that might work well for that.

So, it seems like I'm going to be able to get as involved as I'm able to handle (which is a lot) and I can't wait to get started! Darius told us before we left that, as soon as he read my email, he was excited to have us on the team. That was a huge relief because I know I have a tendency to come off a little too strongly when I am excited about something and wasn't sure how he would react. This isn't the first time a ministry leader has thought, "Wow. Is this girl for real?" But, thankfully, it seems like we all share the same passion so James and I get to run with this and see where it takes us.

I'm particularly excited to see how this helps James' and my faith grow individually and as a couple. It's been a while since he was this involved in church leadership, and by all accounts this is going to be a 24/7 commitment. The Jr. High leaders made sure to warn us that, as soon as these kids get a hold of our cell phone numbers and email addresses, they will be contacting us all the time to ask questions and go spend time with them. But that is something we welcome and are looking forward to (so much so that when I renewed my cell phone contract last week, I made sure we upgraded to unlimited text messages so we won't have to hold back when our group members want to chat).

For the time being, we have to wait until our background and reference checks go through. But after we get the email officially welcoming us to the team, we'll start getting our feet wet by helping out with the Sunday morning youth group meetings. I'm so excited and can't wait to get started!