Right now life is hard.
I am so blessed to be where I am and serving God and working with amazing teens at a wonderful church, but my personal life has really been taking some blows. It's been difficult at times to be normal with the kids (and not be short with them) and to make it through Wednesday night youth group.
So on Wednesday, we were giving the kids a chance to just meet with God. We opened up the cross (our alter) and told them that if they wanted prayer to come to us, that we were not going to go to them that night... we wanted them to have the time they needed with God. The kids responded. We had many at the cross and several that came and asked for prayer.
I had just gotten done praying with one of my teens, and one of my other girls came up, stood next to me and put her arm around me.... and was silent. I asked her if there was something she wanted prayer for and she said, "No, I just wanted to give you a hug and tell you that I love you."
I just about lost it.
Its my job to minister to my teens.... but sometimes, they are really the ones blessing me.
This same girl posted this on her myspace page:
Talk about feeling loved and appreciated. I think its a very rare thing for a youth pastor to feel real appreciation from their teens... often times teenagers take things for granted, but this week, I am blessed to have teens that genuinely love me.
Welcome to my Blog!
I'm a youth pastor in Southern California at a Nazarene church. I've been serving here for about 4 years. We have a large youth group of around 100 teens from all different cultures and backgrounds.
We merged with a Spanish church in January of 07 and our youth groups are now ONE! As of a little more than a year ago, I am working with a co-youth pastor named Javier. If you want to know more about me, you can read my very first blog post here.
I started this blog as a way to remember the amazing things that happen in my everyday life in ministry... the hilarious things that my teens say and do, the joys and victories, and the life stories of the amazing teenagers that are the future of our church, and our world. But I am also glad when it brings encouragement and joy to others. Feel free to leave your comments and let me know you're reading!
I am so blessed to be here, I love my teens... they are my heart!
And by the way...
at our church...
we speak 5 languages!!!
English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese and Gypsy! :)
Music We Love!
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