Roughly twelve years ago my wife and I took over our church’s 7th-12th grade program (in which we named Youth Group Live). We were not young believers, but we were young. And I have no qualms in saying now: we really had no idea how to run a youth program. However, that ended up being our greatest strength. Our church had modeled to us the power of community—especially the kind that happens in living rooms and around kitchen tables. So, we invited them to our home. And every week they showed up. They wandered through our small 2 bedroom apartment. They lingered after group was over. They were hungry for any leftovers from our dinner and they were willing to sit on our floor, listening, talking, having church. When we moved houses, they moved with us. They broke lights, ran through screen doors, and always wanted leftovers. They were the “big kids” to my own four children. Some were closer to us than others, some came and went, and then there were those that simply fell off somewhere along the line. There were so many in twelve years. I often wonder: How do they remember us? Did we move them closer to Jesus? Or did they think we were shallow adults simply trying to win the approval of a younger generation? Do they even remember us?
As much as I want to be remembered for clever dad jokes and cool music choices, it was never really about us or a program. Of course we had a level of authority, but the power was in steering youth to their own spiritual experiences—especially the kind where one says they have tasted God’s goodness in the land of the living. And that was the program. Amidst chaotic ice breakers, high carb snacks, and yelling over each other was the gospel truth. My wife and I took the scriptural block of I John 3:1-3 and built everything around it. It reads, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” 1 John 3:1-3 NASB.
Past all the programming, youth ministry is simply just that: ministry aimed at youth. And we felt strongly that Youth Group Live wasn’t about preaching no, but teaching truth’s yes. So instead of incorrectly reducing purity to the absence of sex, drugs, and rock’n roll, purity is the result of actually having hope in God as a Father. Purity is active and forward: see and fix. See this great love and fix your hope. In other words, there is no other hope that will carry you through this life and into the next one, but that of God the Father, Jesus the Victor, and Holy Spirit the Friend. Seeing (experience) that truth and fixing your life upon it as a foundation is purity. Purity is moving towards truth. And truth has a name: Jesus.
So as our season of youth pastoring comes to an end, we write this to all of our past and current students: we cannot stress enough the importance of seeing God for who He really is and then fixing your entire life on that truth. Do not live hesitant nor in a slumber. Do not be comfortable, but live dangerously to the point that your “seeing and fixing” will bring heaven to earth. Do not put your hope in people for they will fail you, but love people deeply for Jesus carried His cross for them, and for you. And lastly, be still and still be moving.
We are honored to have known all of you.
Love Hughes’s
