Young Life

April 20, 2017

Student Choice: Young Life

“Young Life doesn’t start with a program. It starts with adults who are concerned enough about kids to go to them, on their turf and in their culture, building bridges of authentic friendship. These relationships don’t happen overnight – they take time, patience, trust and consistency.” – Young Life website

Young Life is a ministry that’s close to my heart. My relationships with Jesus came alive in Young Life. It became important to me before I was even born when my mom went to Saranac Village, a Young Life camp in New York. It was here that she met Jesus for the first time. This relationships led her to a church in her college town, which led her to my dad, which led to me. What really draws me into Young Life is this idea of relational, incarnational ministry. As human beings, we are longing to be in community. We want to be together, among others, learning from each other, conforming to each other. It is in a very wiring. Furthermore, I believe that we crave authenticity. We question whether or not someone is being genuine, whether their thoughts are matching their actions, their internal matching their external. The one, big, spiritual moment that changed my mom’s story forever, was actually the result of a lot of small, relational, kingdom-shaking moments. As a Young Life leader now, I get an inside look into the down-to-earth, real-life aspect of relational ministry. For the past two years, I have been going to soccer games, football games, plays, dances, and pizza places in Poquoson, in an attempt to entrench myself into the community. But more than that, I have been praying for Poquoson and asking God what he has for this one specific place. From my prayers, stem relationships and from relationships, stem more prayers. The thing about relational, incarnational ministry is that it breaks your heart. Because no longer can you shut the door at the end of the three hours of “volunteer time.” Instead, you invest your life, time, energy, and money into a place. You see brokenness on brokenness – but then you see victory.