Focus

There are many things that we can focus on in our lives at any given moment. I can focus on my 6 year old's soccer match and become fully immersed in the game not letting anything distract me. You can see focus in the eyes of someone when you look at them or when the camera zooms in on them. Focus is hard for some and easy for others.

Youth workers have been labelled recently as people who cannot focus. When you look at the hemorrhaging faith of students over the last number of years, who's getting blamed? Youth workers are getting blamed. Children's workers are not getting blamed, just youth workers. Mainly because we cannot/will not/have trouble focusing. How many things do you do as a youth worker through out the week? Small group, event planning, program planning, social media, website design, reading, parents, emails, lesson planning, worship, graphics, etc... (not a complete list).

What do you focus on when it comes down to the youth ministry that God has placed you right now?

I believe that the biggest failure in youth ministry is that we are focusing a majority of our efforts on the students we have or attend our events. We are not going to where the students are.

When was the last time you walked the halls of your local school? Do you know the names of your local high school administration? Better yet, do they know your name?

I get it, honestly I do. You feel safer being in "your own atmosphere" it's more climate controlled for you.

I used to be a youth worker like this, safe in my own program and environment that I had created. What I discovered is that I was missing the untamed climate of relationships that God want me to have with students "where they are" not asking them to come to my thing.

When you focus at all the things that you do in youth ministry, is it really about you or them?