Sabbath and Youth Ministry? Is that even possible?
Lately, the idea of sabbath rest has captivated my thoughts. It has become cliche to say that we are to busy to slow down, much less take a sabbath. First, let's address the point that we don't "take" sabbath rest; it is not equivalent with a "day off," though the two are not mutually exclusive. We "participate" in sabbath rest, we are to "receive" life-giving renewal of our body and souls. To understand sabbath as something to receive rather than something to take, we can put into perspective that we deny God's gift to us because "we" are too busy to slow down.
We want our students to learn God about God, no, we want our students to yearn after God's own heart. We spend hours, days, weeks and years trying to come up with the best graphics, the most clever series titles, and the most profound teaching content so that our students can get the big picture of what God is doing in the grand continuum called life and how we can participate in it. We jump to the gospels to talk about Jesus, into the epistles to follow Paul, but we somehow skipped the portion of the bible that we all set out to read January 1 of every year, Genesis. God creates, God rests; ebb and flow. God acts, then God makes rest "holy." Do our ministries seek to act with all of the good intention only to leave students empty handed? Has the mindset of production and efficiency leaked into our ministries to deceive us that through works our faith will be made complete? Do we set aside time to rest at all or do even our hours of down time become hours of being productive?
When we can put to rest the lie that we have to produce to be valuable is the day that we will all be able to breathe and let God recreate in us. When we put faith into God and give him our time (heaven forbid a whole day), then we will find our body and souls renewed. When we give our students those times in community, intentional sabbath rest times where time is set aside to actually rest (seems to be a foreign concept), we will see over-worked, over-burdened, painfully unmotivated teenagers come to know God's saving grace not through works and production but through rest. In our lives and our ministries we must allow God to recreate in us, not only personally in isolation, but corporately in community.
We want our students to learn God about God, no, we want our students to yearn after God's own heart. We spend hours, days, weeks and years trying to come up with the best graphics, the most clever series titles, and the most profound teaching content so that our students can get the big picture of what God is doing in the grand continuum called life and how we can participate in it. We jump to the gospels to talk about Jesus, into the epistles to follow Paul, but we somehow skipped the portion of the bible that we all set out to read January 1 of every year, Genesis. God creates, God rests; ebb and flow. God acts, then God makes rest "holy." Do our ministries seek to act with all of the good intention only to leave students empty handed? Has the mindset of production and efficiency leaked into our ministries to deceive us that through works our faith will be made complete? Do we set aside time to rest at all or do even our hours of down time become hours of being productive?
When we can put to rest the lie that we have to produce to be valuable is the day that we will all be able to breathe and let God recreate in us. When we put faith into God and give him our time (heaven forbid a whole day), then we will find our body and souls renewed. When we give our students those times in community, intentional sabbath rest times where time is set aside to actually rest (seems to be a foreign concept), we will see over-worked, over-burdened, painfully unmotivated teenagers come to know God's saving grace not through works and production but through rest. In our lives and our ministries we must allow God to recreate in us, not only personally in isolation, but corporately in community.
posted by Levi at
1:04 PM
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