In your job with youth, you experience both the fun/joy of seeing students make beautiful decisions toward maturity in faith and poor decisions leading to pain and frustration. In this blog, I’d like to hear of the fun/joy and how it energizes you to “stay in the game.”

I started my journey of leading youth when I was only 17 years old, and co-led a group of grade 6 girls at our local church’s youth group. Those girls have now graduated from high school and are living fruitful, independent lives. With my current role now, I had the honour of starting a youth ministry from its infancy at our newest church plant – and I get to do it all over again! Don’t read that in a ton of regret, but rather excitement and anticipation. But let’s also be real in saying I don’t miss having all grade 6’s.

I’m still in my first decade of youth ministry, so my journey is still young, but in the experience I do have, I have felt the most heartbreak and the most joy through the interactions with the youth I do life with – I still don’t know how I can feel polar opposite feelings, yet I know it’s real.

The joys are what keep me going. I often think about the image of storing those joyous moments in a treasure box in my heart so that I can look back at them during the times I feel like I’m walking through mud.

Currently, my treasure box is glowing with cherished moments. Let me go back to my first small group. They could probably single handedly burst my heart open! My co-leaders and I constantly tell them that what they have in a small group is SO rare – and that’s not at all a prideful comment on the way we led the group. The bond they share is definitely not from our doing, but a gracious gift from God. Many of them head of to camp together in the summers to love on and teach young kids about the faith that they hold tight to; a group of them serve together in the preschool and kids ministry at our church; they plan get-togethers just to be present in each other’s lives; and they encourage and challenge one another in their faith. I think of Hebrews 10:24, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds”. That is what I see when I see them.

When I think back on the 7 years of life together, the current outcome is what I desired for them as a group, yet I remember wrestling over how to create that. How do you create environments that foster community? How do you encourage and challenge them in their faith, which then translates to them encouraging and challenging each other?

The crazy thing is that I still don’t have the formula. And that’s probably because there is no formula. Sure, there are some strategic moves you can make as a youth leader, but the love they have for one another is proof that God was in the center of it all. It was a loooooong seven years – don’t even get me started about grade 6! Yet the story we share as a small group is one I hold on to when I’m in the thick of things with youth – there is always hope.

The other aspect of working with youth that gets me more excited than chocolate ice cream is watching them find their gifting. I have one student right now who’s helping on our church tech team, and he’s realizing he has this gift that can be used to serve in the church. Another one of my students has a heart for advocating for the oppressed – it just blows my mind as I watch her passionately talk about the injustices in the world and what she wants to do about it. There’s another student who has an incredible gift of teaching, and she’s diving deeper into that at our weekly kids after school program. Then there are the two students who are exploring the idea of having a gift of creating a program to lead a group of kids through.

Dare I go on?

(If only you could sense the excitement bubbling through my veins as I think about all of the students I get to journey with!)

There are so many messages in society today that restrict the next generation from discovering their God given gifts – gifts that we NEED in our world. When a student is given the space to be able to discover what that may be, and when they realize that they can live for more than just the American dream, mountains can be moved. What a joy it is to be able to be part of that movement.

I wish I could journey with them all and help them discover those gifts, but instead I have committed to doing for even just one. And that one has the power to make me dance with joy. If I’m being even more real, the process of writing this blog helped me re-live the dance since my heart temporarily forgot the music. But that’s a blog for another day.

To conclude, another joy of working with the next generation is those I get to lead with. I’m thankful for friends and the broader community of others who share a similar passion. It’s an encouragement to know that we’re in this together, and to share stories with each other about the ways we see youth thrive.

Basically, the world needs to prepare themselves for the upcoming generation – they’re going to do, and are currently doing, some amazing things!

Madison’s question to Matthew: There have been many people who have been hurt by the Church. How would you advise someone who is talking to someone hurt by the church? What encouragement would you give to the person who has been hurt by the church?

I must first set the stage for my answer to this question by looking at my own church experiences. My earliest memories were of life at Grantham Mennonite Brethren Church in St. Catharines until the age of 14. I wasn’t that keen about attending Sunday service (boring for a young guy), however boys club during the week and youth group were very positive. In grade 9 we moved to another church where my father became the pastor of a 1-year-old church plant – although he continued to be a High School Vice Principle. This was also an amazing community where I was baptized and enjoyed some great youth group experiences. When I got married and moved to Guelph, Janice and I were involved at Lakeside Bible Church where Jan enjoyed serving in the kid’s ministry and I enjoyed both music and men’s ministry while engaging in my banking career. I am now a pastor in London for the past 15 years, and although we have had some ebbs and flows over these years, it has been meaningful and both of my children were positively influenced in their faith.

So for me to answer this question I can only do so from listening to others, observing from afar and speaking with other church leaders.

I truly do believe that there are churches who have been, and continue to be, led poorly. Church leaders are too controlling and treat members in less than stellar ways. I am often saddened when I hear the stories and speak directly to those who have been so poorly treated. For the most part, I have discovered that church leadership who hurt members are attempting to maintain control of how people look and act externally and miss out on the life-long heart transformation that we are all a part of.

On the other side, I have seen some people blame a local church for hurting them when in fact they simply didn’t get their way in something and dealt with it poorly. Their disappointment and perhaps at times lack of emotional intelligence made them lash out in poor ways and as they leave they blame that particular church for hurting them instead of looking in the mirror.

All that being said, people will have legitimate reasons for churches hurting them more often than I’d like to hear. So, how do we deal with this?

First, if you are speaking with someone who says that the church has hurt them, listen. Hear their story and ask questions to understand fully. Sometimes it is painful to hear the whole story, at times you may not believe all that you are hearing – that’s okay. Just listen and acknowledge that they feel pain from the experience – it is their reality.

Second, it is important for them to consider that it was a person, or persons who hurt them, not the church itself. Many of us, myself included, tend to move up a level or two in blame, perhaps it makes us/me feel good. For example, if a particular employee at a call centre engages with me in a poor way, I am just as likely to blame the entire company even though it was specifically that person who treated me poorly. Why do we/I do this? I wish I knew so that I could deal with it in my own life in better ways.

Third, as followers of Jesus, we are always called to reconciliation. I have seen this happen in such beautiful ways. As much as it depends on us, and as much as we feel safe to do it, we are to reach back to resolve things. Whenever someone comes to our church from another church, if the conversation allows it, I ask them if they left well. I ask them to not simply slip out the back door but to explain to the church leadership why they have chosen to leave that local church. If there has been hurt or disappointment, this can be trickier for sure. In those circumstances I do my best to listen to what took place and offer whatever counsel I can as they seek to find healing.

If you are someone who has been hurt by a local church, as a pastor, I want to apologize to you. I don’t know your circumstances, I don’t know exactly what took place, but I do want you to know that it does hurt me to know you’ve been hurt.

Please don’t give up on the local church. Please don’t declare all churches are bad and go out and live faith in Jesus on your own. It may take a season of stepping away to find some healing, I get that. And yet, we are called to embrace each other as followers of Jesus, to live in community. We are called to forgive and the accept forgiveness. These are challenging aspects of our faith to embrace at times, particularly when those in leadership of a local church act in ways that cause pain.

It is my prayer that you would find healing, that you would once again experience community with other followers of Jesus, and that your love for the Church would never fade.

For the kingdom.