For those of you who do not know, I am a youth leader, and have been the past 8 years. We are in a new season, and we have switched the time we are now meeting. Our first service was last night, and I say it was a huge success! We had an awesome turn out of kids and leaders; there was high energy, excitement, and good teaching. One other thing we added was small groups. We will have the service time then the last 40 minutes of the night will be designated to small group time.
With this change, came a change for me as well. I have stepped out of the leading students’ role and into helping lead the women leaders’ role. With this season of life my husband and I are in; we have small children, so the time it takes outside of a Sunday to invest in a teen, (which involves going to pick up, take out, and take home), I just don’t have that kind of freedom with my schedule right now. Won’t always be that way, but for now it is. So it was said to be more efficient for me to help lead the leaders. This, in just a practical sense, is easier for me right now because they can drive and come to me during the kids nap time! So….all that to say we are in a new season in youth ministry; one I am very excited about.
God also has been taking me personally through a season of some tough stuff. Looking back there are some things that have really stood out to me. These four things are the things I want to take to my leaders and pray it filters down to the students.
This new season we are in, is a time to dig in deep, to press in to what God has for us personally and as a ministry. The things he has taught me are to what I believe should be the paradigm in which we are to lead.
I want us to be leaders that:
1. HEAR what God says
2. BELIEVE what God says
3. Says YES to what God says
4. DO what God says
With this, I have learned that when we hear from God, we are to actually believe what he says. Go figure. J He is trustworthy and smart and knows a whole lot more than we do…..we believe what he says. Then that believe needs to turn into a Yes. “Ok Lord—sounds totally crazy, but I trust you and will do/go/surrender.” Then the last part I didn’t really understand until this past season…..saying yes is one part, but actually DOING it is another. You have to do what he is asking. It’s a part of this and a significant step in the process—DO what He says.
In Hebrews 11 we read what is called the “faith chapter.” It is examples of people who have gone before us and were the ultimate example of how to have faith. One thing that quickly stood out to me is that all of these people have the same thing in common…..They Heard. They believed. They said yes. And they DID what God asked of them.
BUT the other side of this is, as Hebrews 11: 13-16says: “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.”
If you go on to read down to verse 16, it says that “they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one….”
I think as girls/wives/leaders we can get so wrapped up in the “to do” we stop longing for a better country. Our eyes get so fixed on the things we have to do. Whatever your “to do” is…. whether it be for you working out, eating right, the spouse, the kids, the chores around the house; whatever it is for you, we lose sight of the fact that we should be LONGING for a better country. Longing is an intense word. It is defined as a yearning desire, and yearning is a feeling of intense longing for something. Did you catch that? It’s an INTENSE longing for. What if as women we actually did live this way: Hear, Believe, Said Yes, and do what God says? What if we took our eyes off us and what we had to do, and started longing again for a better country?
Wouldn’t we love differently? Wouldn’t we lead differently? Wouldn’t we pass on something to younger generations just like Hebrews 11 passed on to us?
That is my heart and goal for us as women leaders. I want our gaze and our focus to be longing –desperate—earnestly seeking Jesus, to have every motivation, and action be because we are longing for a better country. To realize this is not our home, and that we are here on mission. We are not here to be “good people,” we have a responsibility to lead people to the feet of Jesus. We are in a short season here in life. We don’t have time to be longing for anything other than our home.
Lets become followers that hear, believe, say yes, and do.
xo
