Underground ReLOVEution

So that last few posts have sparked some inspiration on what to write. As I was reading through these ideas, I wanted to flesh them out a little bit more and see where they go. First I need to give you guys some background. Since I've been going to youth group, I've loved this place. I feel like this youth group is an amazing place to be deep, honest about who you are, and feel loved. A lot of other people I've talked to agree with me and love coming to the youth group because there is love and Jesus and depth there. I pretty much started coming to youth group since Steve started being youth pastor and so I've grown up under Steve's leadership for a long time. When I was going through high school, there was a great group of students in the youth group. Molly, Holly, Ruthann, Bekah, Callie, Charlie, Lacey, Auston, Jacob, Jason... the list goes on. What amazes me about the youth group is that a LOT of people who come out of the youth group go onto to live devoted lives to Jesus. Most youth groups have their students leave and then when there is no youth group, they fall apart and leave Jesus. That doesn't happen as much as normal in this youth group and you can see it in how many youth group graduates go on to do DTS, Bible School, College, and other stuff (like youth staff). People continue to live for Jesus even when they get out of youth group, which is awesome and rare.

This last year a lot of the students who graduated through youth group came back on staff and so the youth staff has been going through changes. Steve had an awesome idea and he divided the youth group into different ministries (outreach, inreach, sound, worship, arts team, food team, girls team, boys team, etc.) Each of us leaders took over a team with the goal of getting students involved and creating a really good ministry. Holly took outreach team and has assembled a team to go out and work with different local ministries and serve the broken. More importantly, or just as importantly, we had the goal of developing leaders who could take over for us if any of us left (go to another state, die, normal stuff like that). Steve realized that if more people were able to grab onto a ministry and run with it, it would grow much bigger than Steve could do by himself.

This has gotten me so excited. I've seen a whole bunch of youth leaders really grow in maturity and become good leaders because of their role on these teams. I've also seen a lot of students grow in leadership as they've become part of these teams and start taking responsibilities. It's caused the youth group to grow up a whole lot more and mature a whole lot more.

Still, why do I write all that?

I write it because the dreaming is not done. The reason I wrote down the dreams I did a couple of posts ago is because I want you guys to not stop dreaming. It is my hope that everyone of you becomes a part of a team and runs with your own idea. Some of these ideas are not going to happen, but maybe God is pressing on your heart to start one of these things. Maybe he wants to grow you in ways you couldn't imagine. So many churches have a few paid pastors and then a whole bunch of followers. Most church-goers are spiritual gluttons, relying on the pastor to teach them, to lead them, to serve them, to feed them. They come to church expecting one stop shopping for their spiritual appetite. God has called all of us to be a part of this, not just Steve or the leaders. We want you guys to get involved and star becoming a part of the youth group bigger than you could have imagined.

As I go forward I'm going to flesh out some of the dreams I wrote about, but I want you guys to continue dreaming, and maybe some of the ideas will spark you to run with them or come up with your own. Steve always says that you can change the world. He doesn't mean you can change the world when you graduate, but rather that you can change the world now. Become a part of what God is doing and dream.