Isaiah's Thanksgiving Reflection
It’s another Saturday night Bible study. The praise is over, the message is over, dinner is over, and the small group time is over. We’re all just sort of milling around North Loop in that aimless but enjoyable time during which teachers and parents round up their wandering youth students to go home. I’m chatting with a bunch of fellow Element members. One of them says, “hey, can I sleep over tonight?”
Thus begins another night of fellowship with my fellow youth students. For the past two or three years, such nights have been fairly frequent occurrences, with anywhere from one to five of my youth brothers coming over to hang out and sleep over. Essential of course in every night is first and foremost a time of food. Ramen and Spam are two of the essentials, along with generous amounts of Evergoods and fried rice, plus any leftovers that happen to be just lying around.
Then it’s time to go to bed. Of course, having just eaten a meal, we don’t fall asleep right away. Contrary to the generally accepted stereotype of teenage boys as simple punching machines who wrestle each other into exhaustion whose only other two common activities are sleeping and eating, we generally just end up talking. Late into the night, we talk about school, life in general, various questions they have about Christianity, and (most often) absolutely nothing at all.
Now, being just one of two senior guys in our youth, all of these guys who come over are at least two years younger than me. So in a lot of ways, I’m simultaneously a buddy and an older brother; as the oldest, there’s a lot of responsibility put on me. I have to make sure they don’t blow up the house, or leave a mess, or kill each other. A lot of time I double as a tutor, helping them with homework and stuff. Other times our house is a sanctuary—if for some reason they don’t want to go home that night, their easiest alternative is my house.
So what started out as just fun and hanging out has slowly evolved into something more. It’s been yet another time in my life where the distinction between “my life” and “church” has become blurred to the point of disappearing, and afterwards I found myself better off.
A lot of times I miss being the youngest in youth: just having a bunch of older people to rely on, look up to, and feel in a sense protected by as a more junior member of the same group. Now I’m the oldest, and with that comes a new sense of responsibility. I’ve been forced to grow quickly. Having the youth over, having my life open to them, has forced me in a lot of ways to re-examine my life. Am I comfortable with the younger guys, to whom I’m supposed to be a spiritual older brother and role model as well as friend, seeing the way I live at home? I can’t just play the perfect Christian at church. They’re seeing the way I live at home too: my habits, my interaction with my family, particularly my siblings, and even how I spend my free time. My life has become less and less my own.
Having such knowledge in the back of my mind has really shifted my mindset. No longer is it about what I want. The question becomes, “am I being a good representative for God?” No matter what I might wish, I am older, and also the son of the pastor. With that comes a certain stigma. The way I act will reflect very directly on our church. I feel that this realization has helped me to grow. Although many times I still wish I was just a carefree freshman, in many ways I’m thankful that I’ve received the responsibilities and the opportunities to grow placed on me as an older youth student.
A while back, there were two youth guys in particular who started sleeping over somewhat regularly at my house. At that time, it was still just about having fun together: eating, talking, wrestling, playing foosball, and all that good stuff. The two guys seemed to enjoy it a lot, but to me, there was no greater significance than the fact we were having fun together I didn’t see the whole thing as really related to church: it was just hanging out with friends.
It wasn’t till quite a while later that I heard that these two boys had highly disliked coming to youth before. Every week, one of their moms said, it was an ordeal getting them to go. The turning point, as it turned out, was when they started joining other youth guys in the weekend overnight fellowship times at our house. After that, she said, she found that they came to youth willingly, seeing it not as a torturous ordeal but actually something to look forward to.
I heard this whole story second hand, as told by my mom. It was then that I began to see the whole thing not as just time for fun, but as a form of ministry in and of itself. It was another time when I had been compartmentalizing my life, and I realized that this, too, was a God-given opportunity to bring youth closer into the fold of our church.
So I’m thankful for those times, thankful especially since both of those boys have made decisions since then, thankful that God has blessed me. I used to dislike being the pastor’s kid, seeing it as putting me in a position to be surrounded by five hundred police officers watching my every move. Now, I see it as a grand opportunity: parents of the youth trust that there’s no wickedness going on at the pastor’s house, and thus 8 Avondale Landing has become a youth haven in which many a night of memorable fellowship have taken place. I’m thankful that God has blessed us in that way. He’s brought us closer as well, bonding us in ways that only a night spent chatting about life can. And of course, I’m just plain thankful that we have a body of Christ here in which such times of just good fun and fellowship can take place.