My dear friends, Jay and Cathy Robinson, have been on the Young Life staff for a long time now. I get their digital newsletter from Tulsa, OK, where Jay is the metro director. This is an except from the most recent issue, which I thought gave some really powerful examples of what ordinary attempts can end up looking like in the adolescent world. Young Life volunteer leaders know that evangelism is a spiritual practice.

From the Front Lines

When we invite people to volunteer as a missionary with Young Life, we have a four week training process where we give them all the tools they need to effectively reach kids with the Gospel. But as with any “real life” scenario, the theoretical and the practical are not always the same. Here’s what it’s meant to be a Young Life leader in Tulsa in the past month…

* You have a girl in your campaigner group who has recently been in drug rehab. Late one night you get a text message from her. She doesn’t want to talk on the phone, or in person, but she’ll text (it’s what kids are comfortable with). So you spend the next hour texting back and forth as she’s wrestling with addiction and questions. “Why do I feel this way?” “Does God care about my addiction?” “Why shouldn’t I just give in to the temptation?” You don’t have all the answers, but you love her and she knows it.

* You have a high school friend who loses a loved one. You show up at his house late in the evening and sit with him and his family. The four other adults in the room are smoking which puts enough of it in the air that you’re smoking too. You don’t mind because it’s a small price to pay as an expression of love.

* You sit with a group of teen moms trying to have a Bible study. There are 5 kids running around in the room so it’s difficult to lead a discussion the way you’ve been trained. Somehow you end up discussing tattoos, specifically the ones all of your girls are wearing. You don’t really have a personal reference point, but by listening you discover that for each of these girls, the tattoo is an expression of who they are. They want to be known, so they put a little bit of their story on the outside in the form of body art. Now you know them better, and love them more.

* You have a kid that comes from a difficult family situation. You are aware that this kid doesn’t eat on a regular basis (there’s no regular basis for anything in his world). When he shows up at a lock-in, you knowingly ask if he’s had something to eat. When he responds “no”, you give your credit card to another leader and tell him to go get the kid a meal, no questions asked, it’s just the right thing to do.

We can train all we want and we can prepare for every situation, but when real life hits, love wins the day. Thanks for supporting Young Life, and allowing us to love kids right where they are.

Dear Lord, Give us the Leaders

In the above article, you read about the heart of a Young Life leader. We’re praying for 60 leaders by March 15th. There are 8300 students in the schools were we currently have YL and there are 17,500 in the schools where we do not have a YL presence. The Harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Will you join us in praying for 29 new leaders and 6 new YoungLives mentors by March 15? And let us know if you are interested or if you know someone who is.

Young Life, Tulsa
10010 S 70th East Ave | Tulsa, OK 74133-6221 | 918 665 8525