It’s late in the day and I am at yet another conference hoping I didn’t waste my time and money to hang out with other youth pastors who desperately want God to show up among their students. After spending the afternoon/evening listening to their hearts, I am reminded how unreasonable they are. They expect the vast majority of their pastors, deacons, elders, leaders, and adults to get on board with their vision of student ministry. They expect parents to be excited about their teenagers becoming revolutionaries and counter culture martyrs. They are all under-compensated and over-worked, yet fervently believe that God will honor their faithfulness and act against human reasoning and do amazing things in spite of their best (or worst) efforts.
So, thank you to all of you who share the trenches with me. Workers. Parents. Teachers. Staff members. All of you who believe in the world-changing idealistic power of student ministry. We are an illogical bunch. In many ways, we are unreasonable. (Who would’ve thought that Jesus could have changed the world with a dozen young men?…) I am reminded of these words:
"A reasonable man tries to adapt himself to the world.
An unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
-George Bernard Shaw
