The OneEvent is an annual event the Great Plains Conference hosts for the youth 6th-12th grade in Kansas and Nebraska. This year it was in Grand Island, Nebraska. I, along with two other adults took seven youth. We had one sixth grader, three seventh graders, one eighth grader, one ninth grader, & one senior. Talk about a mixture of youth, four girls and three boys. When you take a mixture like this anywhere, there can be complications of people not fitting in with each other and people being left out. It actually turned out to be a good combination and we had a pretty good trip.
A blurry group picture!
This was our trip home! :)
I really, really enjoyed watching them all step out of their shells and worship God with their peers, make new friends, meet up with old friends, and interact with each other.
I also had two other youth working the event. They are members of the Conference Council of Youth Ministry. This is made up of 2 youth representatives from each district in the conference and they are the ones who helped plan this event and worked it.
These two sophomore boys were everywhere. They were making sure the game room ran smoothly, the sound and tech was working properly and then running the camera during the main stage events. This was where I became very proud. These two boys gave up half of their Christmas break to work on this event, along with countless hours throughout the year in planning meetings.
We have some amazingly talented youth in this church, and sadly the church often doesn't see it. They come in with new ideas and dreams, and there are some members of the church that drag their feet and don't really want to give them the chance to try it out. The youth running the above camera often runs our church sound system and at the first sight of something not running right people throw a fit and don't want him to do it anymore, because he is 15 and might break it. The truth is, he is better on that sound system than anyone else. He is good enough with technology to be put on the tech team at an event for a couple thousand people. At the conference level he is respected as a leader and they let him mess up and keep trying. There is a reason this kid ran the sound system at my wedding.
If our youth are responsible enough, talented enough, and driven enough to do something like this on a big stage in front of a thousand of their peers, why do we even question it here at home, in our little church.
Now, not all youth are cut from this kind of passionate cloth, but each of the young people that were with us this weekend have the potential for leadership. As a youth pastor it is my job to cultivate that leadership and help them discern where God is calling them to use it in their lives. I just wish everyone else would get on board and quit fighting it. We have so much passion and potential in our midst, and their still stuck on why they don't see them on Sunday morning. God doesn't just happen on Sundays, church doesn't just happen on Sundays, and it doesn't just happen within our doors.
It is time for our congregation to get on board and stop being fearful of how things might change because we back our youth up and let them get their feet wet in the world of Christian Leadership. Our youth learned this weekend how to be fearless in their walk with Christ. I think my job this coming year to be more vocal on their behalf. It is time for some change around here, and it is time to stop being fearful of the unknown. These are our kids, this is their church, they are the church, not the future of it. It is time we give it to them and let them run with it.
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