We had a great Home Group tonight at our north location. We design our groups around relationship, and sharing our lives with one another. To be honest, this can easily lead to joking around and shallow conversation. But sometimes, things get deep and go below the surface.
The later shouldn’t probably have occured tonight. Our attendance was down and I was the only leader there (which meant we wouldn’t be able to separate the guys and girls).
During the discussion I asked the students to share how their relationship with God was doing. A simple, but direct question. There was only a moment of silence before one of the students shot up her hand and wanted to speak.
She shared, openly and honestly, about some of the things she’d been going through for the past couple of weeks. Some frustrations and disappointments that were personal, yet appropriate for the mixed gender group.
And that was the start of a 15-20 minute discussion, with a handful of students, about life and their relationship with God. It’s one of those moments that I live for as a youth pastor–watching teens open up and share their lives.
My prayer is that honesty and communication would be a part of these students’ lives as they continue on in their faith. I pray that the relationships formed during these times would be a source of strength and encouragement during highs and the lows that they will inevitably face. That building these kinds of honest relationships would be a normal part of their experience–instead of a unique event that their youth pastor gets excited about.
