My experience in youth ministry as a youth was foundational to my call to ministry. Had it not been for the unconditional love that I felt from my church's youth program and from the conferenc's youth program, I might not have ever heard God's voice calling me into the ordained ministry.
I have recently been listening to a song called
Extraordinary Love by the Wayne Kerr band, a contemporary Christian band that I first heard at a large youth gathering in New York. The chorus for this song goes:
All Glory Praise and honor
All Glory Praise and honor
Is Due You
I'm Taken by Surprise, by an Extraordinary Love
Our job as adult youth workers is to bestow upon all of our youth that "extraordinary love" that the band sings about. I vowed when I became a pastor that I would do all in my power to make every youth that attended my youth ministry feel special and accepted just as they were. Youth culture often times isolates youth who don't fit into the mainstream and the end result is that it makes him feel worthless and unloved. If there is only one thing that we could do as adult youth workers it is to express this unconditional extraordinary love on to every single one of our youth. I am fully aware that this is easier with some students than others.
Towards the end of the song Wayne Kerr quotes a piece of Scripture from Ephesians 2:10 which says, "God has created us a new in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." This week I would encourage every youth worker to share that passage with every youth you are in ministry with.
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