Youth Ministry At the Local Level

Once I began paying off my college loans, I had to give up my involvement in camp ministry for a few years. I did help at a number of local youth events but that was about the extent of my work with youth.

A little over three years ago, Maple City Chapel’s youth pastor Todd Miller offered me an opportunity to work with the church’s junior high youth. He had been the director at Bethel Camp the first time I went there as a counselor. While I thought I wanted to get into children’s ministry at the time, I told him I would consider the position. After a trial run of a couple months, I accepted a volunteer position serving the junior high youth.

God has really blessed the youth ministry at Maple City Chapel. When I came aboard as a leader, we had about a dozen junior highers and three leaders. Weekly attendance has grown to over 20 seventh and eighth graders and five leaders, two couples and myself. I am responsible to organize games including occasional Bible quizzes and sword drills. Ron and Kevin teach the Bible lessons while Wilda and Robin do the scheduling and special-event planning.

Today’s youth are just as energetic and enthusiastic as ever. I have been impressed by their burning desire to do what is right in a “who-cares” society. They care about others, too. Every Wednesday night, we close by allowing the youth to share prayer requests. It is unusual to have fewer than a half dozen. Some nights, the number of requests is so high that the leader selects a number of youth to pray for a request throughout the week. I hope these youth never forget the importance of prayer.

With the renovation of the junior high room, I sense a new excitement among the youth. They want to “own” the room by helping make decisions about a theme verse and the new recreation area. By the way, the theme verse the youth chose is I Timothy 4:12: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” Paul sets this forth as a commandment in the previous verse so I commend the youth for their choice.

I have learned to love and appreciate the junior high kids. They come back each week with a zeal to learn more about God and living for Him. At the same time, I am learning what it means to be a friend and mentor. I hope to take some of these lessons learned and apply them to my newest role as a Sunday School teacher for fifth- and sixth-grade boys. I will write about this new venture, my return to camp ministry and some future aspirations later this week in the final segment of this series.