Little Bits of Nothing.

Would you believe me if I told you that youth ministry is easy?

There are days when I don't know if I would believe that either--but today is one of them. What makes it easy--well, you pretty much have to be yourself all of the time--because if you're anything BUT yourself, the kids see you as a fakie anyways...

And--the things that make the biggest difference to the kids aren't that big of a deal to you.

Like--one of my girls sprained her leg really bad on Sunday. On Tuesday, I dropped by for fifteen minutes, where we talked about her saxophone section in band and her four cats. When I saw her yesterday, she was so excited that I had come to visit.

Yesterday at youth group, I was playing pool with these three junior high girls that consistently dress and act like their best friend just died (what I mean by playing pool is that I was actually interrupting their game by using a broomstick as a Cue stick and using the colored balls as the cue balls, which annoyed them greatly. Didn't I say that Rule #1 is to always be yourself?!) Anyways, I asked the girls if next week before youth group, they would like to meet me downtown for coffee and then I'd bring them to youth group. They made it sound like I was asking them to be my special guests of honor at the Inaugural Ball to crown me Queen of the Universe...later, they insisted they would be returning to youth group every week just to see me.

Today, one of my girls has her final home game for Freshman Basketball. When I told her I'd be there a little after four, she squealed and almost knocked me over. Good thing she doesn't know that I'm pretty much the worst Basketball player ever.

I'm really convinced that these things aren't very significant--in the sense that they don't take much of my time or energy, and they're rather simple and spontaneous...but these little bits of nothing seem to really matter to the kids. I'm excited about that--excited that the most important part of my job really boils down to being real, being consistent, and being available. Isn't that what life's all about anyways?