Zeal

Zeal defined: great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or objective. God is good in how He's given me a new amount of zeal for the youth ministry here at CCJ. Due to some events of the past year, the overseeing of the youth group has been placed on my shoulders... ok I should say it fell on my shoulders. I've been doing what I thought was the best that I could, but still felt like I was in a rut in how I tried to make our students into true disciples. The teachings are solidly based on the Word as we are making our way through the whole Bible (this Saturday, we're doing a survey through the book of Romans), our worship team is almost made entirely of students and they're actually doing really well, and we're doing events to encourage fellowship, but again, I just felt like I was missing something. Then it was like God just radically jump started my heart for the ministry, and instead of being a burden of something I "had" to do, it has now become a real burden on my heart to see kids come to know Christ and become His disciples. It's funny because now it's all I think about, I'm thinking even people may be getting sick of hearing me ask for prayer for the youth group each time prayer requests are given, but it's seriously the one thing I'm consumed with these days. Yesterday, I met with some of the youth of the youth group and asked them for some more ideas of what we could do to make it an even better group and encourage more students to come. They offered some awesome ideas, mainly in the fellowship aspect, such as a spoons night, soccer matches, and games to play, but then they also really wanted to do more outreach and go and host youth group on location more. That was really cool to hear them have a desire to do that and now knowing they enjoy doing that, it just gives that much more encouragement to do so.

Yesterday, I realized that there were 17 million people in Uganda under the age of 15... which is very much reflected by our youth group which is about 30 kids and all except for about 5 are between 10 and 15. I'm realizing too that if you don't get a hold of kids here before they're about 15, you pretty much loose them and increase the difficulty of having them be seriously living the life God has called them to. Between both culturally accepted practices (lying, stealing, sex before marriage) and also poor theology (Jesus died so you could have stuff, and it's all about how you feel), the students are inundated with the world and pulled away from what God desires for them, and the students 16 and up seem to really already be set in their ways, although I know the Holy Spirit can get a hold of and correct anything, there's still an added sense of urgency to get the students solid before that point. Right now I feel like I'm holding a crate of eggs and am so afraid that I'll do something to spoil them, that if I do anything in my flesh, give them a poor example, or fail to make the most of this opportunity that I'm just contributing to them not living godly lives. Needless to say I feel like I'm standing in front of a fire hose with all the desires and passion and brokenness I'm feeling for our little youth group, but I guess that's how it should be. Jesus was filled with compassion for the multitudes as they were like sheep without a shepherd, I just pray that I will share in that feeling and that I would listen to God's voice as He shows me how to be a part of a solution to that problem.