It is one of my goals to get myself on the label of a Jones soda. Moving on...
I lead a youth group with my 3 best friends.
Last night, our youth gathered together to sing worship songs around the piano...one of the kids got into New Brunswick Bible Institute and will be leaving us at the end of the month, and as a farewell, the rest of the kids have decided they want to make church on August 29 be a youth service. So they had to start practicing.
Sounds pretty lame hey? (I get it, I'm not supposed to say that...I'm supposed to be super excited all the time about church.) Now there will be some who think that a youth service is the opposite of lame. I don't want to disregard that at all, all I can do is speak from my own experience.
Truth be told, I have been in my share of youth services, and every single one of them included some wannabe pop stars singing off key worship songs. The whole thing ends up being pretty painful. I know full well that my heart has just been in the wrong place regarding these kind of things. I have been in quite a few "Youth Sundays" and I know exactly what I was thinking about at the time. It didn't involve worshipping Jesus at all...in fact a lot of it was about seeing how much attention I could get for myself.
See, I grew up in a church. I went to a Christian junior high and graduated from a Christian high school. I have been in more youth groups, girls clubs, kids groups and camps than the average bible thumped child of the 80s/90s. It seems I just don't want to get away from church because I even attend a Christian university. (Once you pop you can't stop...story of my life.) So my experience of youth groups and church groups includes a lot of bible study that basically went in one ear out the other...I wasn't ready to hear it. Or I was hearing it but not learning it and believing it...either way. I felt fake. When I think about who I was as a "Christian teenager", I still feel fake. So when it comes to youth groups and teens who grow up in a church, it is easy for me to see if and how they may be "fake" in their own lives and faith.
I see how easy it is for church youth groups to sing around a piano because its the same songs they have been singing for their entire lives, the whole while praising the God they barely know. The songs are memorized because they are played every sunday, and in the car, and after 15 years of hearing them, you know them inside out.
However. Last night was super special. Unlike me, our youth group isn't made of church kids. It's not even made of kids from the schools down the street. Our youth group started when my friend Trevor met a girl on a train who was on her way home to kill herself. He brought her to the Christmas Eve service, and eventually she started bringing her friends to church. Over the past few months, these kids have gone through friends dying, abortions, drugs, sex/rape, domestic abuse and graduating high school. Any given night of youth group ranges from 8-25 people, aging from 12-50s.
4 of the kids in my youth group attended church since they were young...and trust me, that doesn't mean they live the traditional "Christian Life." (After all, it is a bit hypocritical to evangelize and drug deal at the same time...yes?)
As youth leaders, we don't deal with teaching these kids how to evangelize, or spiritual disciplines, or basic theology. We don't do regular bible studies (yet...its in the works.) But, we have done our fair share of house-calls. For example, when they need to talk, or vent, we show up. And when they get high and start cutting themselves, we show up.
It is more likely that you will see our kids smoking up together rather than praying together.
I'm sensing some shocked faces...but I think this is okay for now. They all know what we believe and a lot of them believe it for themselves. That doesn't change what they are used to living for and that won't change over night. So we take some big steps and some baby steps...and then we all take about 98 steps back and basically start over.
So when this group decides they want to sing worship songs around a piano in preparation for a youth sunday that they want to organize, I'm not going to think it's lame. I am going to think it's a miracle.
The song they want to sing is called Better Than a Hallelujah by Amy Grant. I normally don't like much main stream Christian music, but this song is special to me because of how important it is to them. It's real to them, and it makes sense to them.
God made Himself real and tangible to a bunch of screwed up and abused adolescents, and now He uses them to change my life. And on August 29, when these kids get the chance to praise their God in front of their church, I know I won't be the only one changed by it.
Better than a Hallelujah
God loves a lullaby
In a mothers tears in the dead of night
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes.
God loves a drunkards cry,
The soldiers plea not to let him die
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes.
We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah
The woman holding on for life,
The dying man giving up the fight
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes
The tears of shame for what's been done,
The silence when the words won't come
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes.
We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah
Better than a church bell ringing,
Better than a choir singing out,singing out.
We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah
