L
Lenaghan
Guest
Hello everyone,
I have been lucky enough to have fallen into a fantastic local group inside this year, of young Christians whose work focuses on evangelisation to the young people of a small town. Centered around a two week youth-faith summer scheme, our work branches out all year to a children’s club held during the week, and a place of activity for adolescents on a Saturday night. We are into our second decade since having been established, and have seen thousands of kids pass in and out of our doors, many whom now have a solid grounding in faith, or are leaders of the group themselves.
This year has seen some turbulence, since we are looking to evolve to try and remain relevant to the young people around us. We have recently moved to a more central, accessible place to hold our activities during the week, and have tried to introduce some name and time changes. Since the numbers of kids coming to us during the week has dwindled, we feel this change is necessary and will help to re-establish ourselves. However, this is not why I am writing to you.
We are a team of different leaders from 16-24. Younger children from 4-11 are taken during midweek, while older children 12-16 can go to the Saturday night activities. We are always delighted to have a ‘kid’ become a ‘leader’ once they have finished their last year, but the number of new leaders coming has been a small trickle. In our group, there is a very strong circle of particular friends, who have grown up together through the scheme. They are now well established leaders, and very capable of the good work that they do. However, because of such a tight net group of friends, more recent leaders feel excluded to the point that they feel that they “cannot belong” to the team, if they can’t establish themselves in any kind of group of people. More worryingly, these more experienced leaders make no effort to try and make these leaders feel included. In fact, typical comments and the like can be said that would make a new, enthusiastic leader never come through our doors again. Since this group of friends makes such a large proportion of the team, it’s easy to feel excluded, and even easier to walk away.
Also, we are worried about the lifestyle of some of these leaders, in terms of ‘practice what you preach’. As mentioned, we are very much a group that practices much evangelisation, whether that may be activities, memory verses or personal experiences with the kids, or worship and Biblical studies with leaders. I personally have taken so much out of this group, especially in prayer. But we are worried that some leaders aren’t necessarily taking their own words in when they speak to each other, or to the young people. We teach values such as moderation, respect and love, but some members of the team would be avid party-goers, drinkers, fall into fights about friends or love triangles, and bring about hardship and worry among the team. What we do seems to be an opportunity for them to socialize themselves, and with a lack of kids coming to us (some nights there may be none at all), it’s all they manage to do.
If you have persevered with me this far, thank you! My main point is to ask you how you would respond to such a situation, either hypothetically or if you have some experience yourself. In the past, we have unsuccessfully tried to deal with similar scenarios, either by (gentle) confrontation or through a talk which tries to address the situation. Neither seem to work, and that has lead to people distancing themselves from the group or falling out of faith altogether. We are very cautious as what to do, because we certainly do not want anything like that happening again. For many leaders, this is an important bridge between themselves, and their faith.
In the meantime, please pray for our team of young people and leaders. If you have any suggestions or past experiences, do not hesitate to post.
Thank you very much for your time!
I have been lucky enough to have fallen into a fantastic local group inside this year, of young Christians whose work focuses on evangelisation to the young people of a small town. Centered around a two week youth-faith summer scheme, our work branches out all year to a children’s club held during the week, and a place of activity for adolescents on a Saturday night. We are into our second decade since having been established, and have seen thousands of kids pass in and out of our doors, many whom now have a solid grounding in faith, or are leaders of the group themselves.
This year has seen some turbulence, since we are looking to evolve to try and remain relevant to the young people around us. We have recently moved to a more central, accessible place to hold our activities during the week, and have tried to introduce some name and time changes. Since the numbers of kids coming to us during the week has dwindled, we feel this change is necessary and will help to re-establish ourselves. However, this is not why I am writing to you.
We are a team of different leaders from 16-24. Younger children from 4-11 are taken during midweek, while older children 12-16 can go to the Saturday night activities. We are always delighted to have a ‘kid’ become a ‘leader’ once they have finished their last year, but the number of new leaders coming has been a small trickle. In our group, there is a very strong circle of particular friends, who have grown up together through the scheme. They are now well established leaders, and very capable of the good work that they do. However, because of such a tight net group of friends, more recent leaders feel excluded to the point that they feel that they “cannot belong” to the team, if they can’t establish themselves in any kind of group of people. More worryingly, these more experienced leaders make no effort to try and make these leaders feel included. In fact, typical comments and the like can be said that would make a new, enthusiastic leader never come through our doors again. Since this group of friends makes such a large proportion of the team, it’s easy to feel excluded, and even easier to walk away.
Also, we are worried about the lifestyle of some of these leaders, in terms of ‘practice what you preach’. As mentioned, we are very much a group that practices much evangelisation, whether that may be activities, memory verses or personal experiences with the kids, or worship and Biblical studies with leaders. I personally have taken so much out of this group, especially in prayer. But we are worried that some leaders aren’t necessarily taking their own words in when they speak to each other, or to the young people. We teach values such as moderation, respect and love, but some members of the team would be avid party-goers, drinkers, fall into fights about friends or love triangles, and bring about hardship and worry among the team. What we do seems to be an opportunity for them to socialize themselves, and with a lack of kids coming to us (some nights there may be none at all), it’s all they manage to do.
If you have persevered with me this far, thank you! My main point is to ask you how you would respond to such a situation, either hypothetically or if you have some experience yourself. In the past, we have unsuccessfully tried to deal with similar scenarios, either by (gentle) confrontation or through a talk which tries to address the situation. Neither seem to work, and that has lead to people distancing themselves from the group or falling out of faith altogether. We are very cautious as what to do, because we certainly do not want anything like that happening again. For many leaders, this is an important bridge between themselves, and their faith.
In the meantime, please pray for our team of young people and leaders. If you have any suggestions or past experiences, do not hesitate to post.
Thank you very much for your time!