Over the past couple months I got used to leaving my church office every afternoon to head up to the high school and help coach the wrestling team. I loved it because it got me on campus every day, put me in regular contact with a lot of unchurched students, and gave me good visibility to some of my own youth group kids. It was such a great way to build relationships and meet kids on their turf every day, which is what I love doing more than anything else in youth ministry. But now that wrestling season is over, I find I’m starting to fall back into the old rut of gluing myself to office work all day and neglecting the personal interaction with students outside of church. With a youth group of a couple hundred kids, 60-some adult leaders, 18 small groups, events, programs, writing curriculum, meetings, etc., it’s way too easy to become overwhelmed with work and sit behind my desk doing important and necessary stuff. I just need to force myself to leave the office every day when school lets out and understand that work will always be here, but these students won’t be. They’ll be gone in a couple years, so if I have to push something “important” to a back burner and no one else steps up to take ownership of it, it won’t get done. And that’s just the way it is.

Now to call a couple kids and see who wants to go out to eat after school tomorrow…

Posted on March 5, 2008