like a fire

Study: State of High School Seniors Today | Christianpost.com- Christian News Online , Christian World News

Don’t let the long title dissuade you from the site, this article talks about what youth leaders need to hear. I don’t know how accurate the results and analysis are, but it is good food for thought. WHat did they find?

Students were also asked what they wanted to see more of in youth ministry. At the top was the desire for more service projects. Following that, 70 percent of the respondents wanted more or much more time for deep conversation; 65 wanted more mission trips; 65 percent wanted more accountability; and 58 percent wanted more time to worship. Ranked last was the desire for more games.

Sounds close to what I have seen. Anyone want to chime in?

I recently was asked some questions by a fellow youth minister and I was reminded of something when writing out my answers. Thanks Tim!

If you don’t know the word above, then you are very normal. This is a word I came across in reading the Dune series by Frank Herbert. Basically, this word describes the time between realizing the desire for a thing and acquiring it. I don’t know if this is an American thing, but most people I know are not very good at this exercise. We aren’t very patient and we don’t particularly look at the time it could take to achieve some of our dreams.

I was reminded of this by a devotion by Mike DeVries. He likened it to landscaping. Nobody uses seeds anymore. They just go buy a plant, seeds take too long. I have also noted that when people buy plants, the put them too close together not allowing for the growth that will occur if they don’t kill the plants first. Not planning for their growth and spacing them out might just kill them before they have a chance to reach maturity.

I wonder how often we do this in the church. We want growth, but how do we plan for it. More important, how good are we at waiting for it. There is a great book that I read to my daughter Jane fairly regularly. It is called The Carrot Seed. It is the story of a boy who plants a carrot seed and waits patiently for it to grow. Everyone keeps telling him it won’t grow, but then one day it grows. The last line is great. It has a picture of the boy hauling the enormous carrot in a wheelbarrow and it says, “Just as the boy knew it would.”

Our faith should be like this, I think. Our churches should be more like this, I think. We should be willing to wait to see how God is working and growing things beneath the surface.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.—Philippians 2:12-13

It seems like this is the process of our lives. That is to realize the dreams of the new heart God has given us and the effort of working and waiting for them to come to pass.