Someone recently said that ‘peer to peer ministry is like the blind leading the blind’. Ouch. Well, it would fit on a placard; but it’s just plain wrong. I’ll put it on the shelf with ‘Christianity has nothing to offer’ … when I’ve finished with it.
But let’s focus for a moment on ‘the blind leading the blind’ as in – young people leading young people. It’s easy to see where this dude’s attitude comes from, because if you put young leaders in it over their heads – it won’t help them and it won’t help the other young people they are trying to minister to.
How do you stop young leaders going in over their heads?
- A proper environment
- A support network
- Reasonable expectations
(1) By ‘A proper environment’ read – the set up of the interaction between the young people and their young ‘leader’ has to be managed in such a way that they aren’t presented as experts, nor do they pretend to be. They are leaders who help those other yp explore their faith through the tools that they have been taught to use. i.e. prayer, bible, catechism, attitude, the art of living.
There is a very real danger in youth ministry that we only ever associate ourselves with Jesus – and don’t take the slightly humbler step of imagining ourselves on the road to Emmaus; ourselves a disciple, walking with another disciple and listening to Jesus as he opens the scripture. We are all, to some extent blind. None of us are ‘fully formed’ – and it is the recognition that our entire job is to bring people to Jesus that allows us to stay on track.
(2) By the very nature of the relationship, the questions posed by the yp to their leader are going to be the sort of questions that are also close to the leader’s heart. It’s important that they aren’t left to carry that burden alone, but are surrounded by prayer, people who can answer their questions, and occasionally have a CRB –checked shoulder to cry on.
It’s okay that they are only one step ahead of the people they are ministering too – as they grow, so will the gap; and one day they will look around and realise they are training other young people to be leaders. Should they be silent because they haven’t read all of Sirach, or find bits of the catechism unintelligible? No! (1 Timothy 4:12) Seek to grow deeper in your knowledge, but recognise that today you work with what you have.
(3) Some things stress young people out. Some things stress anyone out; but different things stress different people out. Some will be au fait with standing up in front of a thousand people and giving a testimony – most won’t. Ask your young leaders what they are capable of, and keep asking whether or not they are comfortable / ok.
When the young people are gently and carefully led deeper into their faith, they will lead others deeper into theirs. And now I’ll tell you something mind blowingly important – The heroes that you meet are more important that the heroes you never meet.
When you meet someone who has something that you don’t, that you consider to be great – great kindness, outstanding generosity, endless patience, at that moment something that is written in our soul makes us point and say – that – that feels written in my bones. That’s important! Recognise those moments.
There is a moment in Wreck-it-Ralph (spoiler alert) right at the end where the hero realises that he cannot save himself. Describing it like that doesn’t really do it justice. He suddenly realises that he has a purpose, something deeper written in his heart which is telling him the right course of action, that despite the fact that he faces certain annihilation, it is still the right thing to do; giving his own life to save another.
…and our hearts respond. The story of salvation echoes in our hearts. We all want to be saved, and in some way we all want to be a saviour, too. We are made for Christ, and in His image we are made. We are called to save and be saved
We are called to be heroes. You don’t need to wait until you’ve read every page of the bible, every catechism quote, every encyclical and every Vatican II document before you start evangelising, because eternity starts today. So whether you are young or whether you are old – we’ve got the good news! Let’s tell people.
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