Let me tell you something. I hated high school, but yet I hated leaving it if that makes sense. I loved the youth group that I was in and I knew with the end of high school happening that my time there was pretty much done.
If you know me well enough, you'd know that I like consistency. I think consistency is key to almost everything. Don't confuse consistency with complacency though. Two totally different things!
At this point in my life I had been involved so deeply in something for almost 5 years. That seems like a short amount of time, but when you have invested (or feel like you have at least) so much it becomes precious.
I left a mess for college. I made stupid high school decisions. (Yeah, go ahead and cast the first stone if you didn't make a stupid decision in high school.) Throughout college I tried to contribute to the local church, but that never really jived because of my immaturity and living on the fence at the time. I'm being very transparent today.
Time continued to pass along. I got married to my beautiful wife. We finally drug ourselves back to church. You wouldn't believe how unhappy we found ourselves not going to church for the first few months of marriage. It almost never failed those months that we would end up in a small spat just because we were miserable.
My buddy, MJ, never gave up on me though. We knew each other since I started college. He was working with the youth at the church and that kind of thing. He became the youth pastor at Man O' War Church. He kept encouraging us to come there. It was an hour away, but we finally relented and went. He sucked us in and we got on board.
We started helping out with the youth there and loved it. We got deeply involved and pushed out of our comfort zone more than we ever anticipated.
Fast forward. We move home. We talk to the current youth pastor at the church we are attending and boom, we are right back in the thick of it.
I say all of that to say this:
I never knew how much giving back would become rewarding. I knew that there was work involved. I knew that people sacrificed. I knew all of that. I never knew why they stayed with it. I now know. It's because of getting to see students grow. You get to watch them go through a process. You get to help them along the way. You get to see how God can move through a 17 year old.
I get to experience it from a whole new perspective. I think the more I see, the more I enjoy this side of the fence. Not because I don't deal with high school or college, but because I feel like I can see the big picture.
The thing is that your experience doesn't have to be related to youth! It can be in homeless ministry, widows ministry, senior ministry, college, adult, children, music, or even just being an example. Figure out why you do what you do.
I encourage you to give back. You won't regret it, and it will probably be the most sacrificing and rewarding thing all at the same time. Not tangible rewards, but God's Kingdom rewards.
See what my friend, Jamie Boggs, has to say about giving back on his blog, "The Knowledge Dropper."
Be sure to share with your friends via Twitter and Facebook. Tweet me: @justintho21
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