Our teens are on a Missions Trip to New Jersey. I thought it would be great for you to hear the heart of Bart Leu, our youth minister. He wrote this a few months ago.
Early on in my years of ministry, I came across an amazing manual about youth ministry. I have since misplaced that manual, and I can’t remember the author’s name, but I do remember the title and the theme of the content. It was called, Youth and Missions: A Necessary Love Affair.
The author was a youth pastor who had found the incredible joy of seeing teens get out of their comfort zones to love and serve others in the name of Jesus Christ. It became his love affair in ministry, and he offered many ways to see this become a reality in every youth group.
I understand this man’s passion for youth and missions completely. After 20+ years of being involved as a volunteer youth leader and youth pastor, youth and missions has become my “necessary love affair” too!
What is it about missions that gets a middle aged youth pastor like myself so worked up about ministering to teens? I have seen the fire of the Holy Spirit lit and fanned into flame in the hearts of teens during missions like I have never seen in any other facet of youth ministry. I see teens capture the heartbeat of God, to make disciples of all people, to spread the love and grace of God without shame or fear to everyone God divinely appoints us to encounter along the way. Whether teens get involved in a work project, a service project, or direct evangelistic ministry, God grabs a hold of their hearts and tunes it to His passion in a way that is quite frankly awesome to perceive.
The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 2: “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others than better than yourself. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and become obedient to death, even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
As these verses state, in the end it’s all about the glory of our awesome heavenly Father. Jesus, the God-man set the example for us of how to leave our comfort zone (his was heaven) and to humbly serve others and look out for their best interests. Jesus is our model here at The WAY Student Ministries of Faith Baptist Church. During our monthly nursing home ministry, doing a 30 hour famine to raise money for starving kids, a ministry of mercy to homeless people every November in Flint, doing a VBS for kids and knocking on 1500 doors and sharing God’s love and hope in St. Louis, painting a church in Menominee, MI, and other mission opportunities, we want to see teens hooked on Jesus and his rescue mission of love to this world. We would love to have your young person join us in God’s and our love affair!