Originally posted May 2011.
I received this email from my friend Charlie who leads at another school in our area. He has three kids, works full time, and has been volunteering at the same high school for 11 years. May you be blessed by his honesty.
Friends,
Monday night we had Senior Club. Zero, that’s right a big fat goose egg, senior guys came to club.
The same guys that i have spent the last 4 years with (even a few that i had just played 18 holes of golf with on Saturday) did not show up.
For selfish reasons I wanted them to show up…”How does it look that none of my campaigners or other senior guys that I’ve invested in aren’t here?” I wasn’t going to hear the shout-outs to me for being there for them, the freshmen guys weren’t going to hear encouragement from senior guys to keep coming to YL and letting Charlie buy you dinner, or what it means to be in a campaigner group experiencing life together and learning what Jesus meant when he says, “I have come to give you life.”
Most importantly I wanted to send them off with a message from Philippians 1:3-11 which reminds us that “being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
A few of them texted me that night apologizing, one called me the next day to see how the last club went. I started doubting my role as a YL leader.
Thoughts in my head were asking,
“Is it really worth it? Do these guys even get it? Am I wasting my time?”
I realized that was all from the devil (who sucks by the way)…I was reminded of something Ty Saltzgiver had said, “God doesn’t call you to be successful, just faithful.”
I remembered this quote when a freshmen guy texted me Wednesday and asked if we could go to dinner and talk about some things. Still feeling upset about Monday night, I told him yeah, let’s do it. We went to dinner last night and had great conversation and I thank God for this ministry.
Today, God blessed me with a text message from an old YL kid who is graduating college today. The text read:
“I wanted to let you know that you are one of the people who helped me get to this point in my life. You gave me the best gift anyone could give when you introduced me to Christ. Just wanted to say thank you.“
I don’t know why I’m sending this email, maybe to encourage those in ministry that yes…God doesn’t call us to be successful, just faithful…but in our faithfulness we become successful. So, here’s to planting seeds…
God is Good,
Charlie
Have you been discouraged? Encouraged? Would you be willing to share your Young Life story? If so, consider submitting a guest post.
