o sleep. This happens a lot lately. At around 6, Sam woke up and we spent a couple hours talking and laughing as the sun came up behind the shades in our bedroom. As we were laying there, enjoying each other’s company I said something along the lines of, “This is one of the last moments we get to be just us two. Our lives are going to change forever any minute now.”

I’ve been a part of youth ministry for 10 years now. It’s pretty safe to say that I’ve seen most things, from giving a standing ovation at school plays to sitting and playing cards in a psych ward. It’s true that youth ministry requires a youth leader to put on many hats, so to speak: advisor, friend, leader, teacher, support system, cheerleader, etc. But I think one of the most important parts of youth ministry is helping a younger person through the early stages of figuring out how to make their faith their own. For a lot of youth that I’ve worked with, they’re at the point in their life where their idea of Jesus is mostly made up of what their parents and relatives say He is. Until this point, they haven’t really thought deeply about what the Bible says, just what other people have taught them it says. So as a youth leader, you have the really cool opportunity to course correct some misunderstandings they have about what the Bible says about certain things.

It just absolutely blows my mind how God can completely use us in the most insane ways when we are “all in” for him! When we have a strong passion to glorify him in everything that we do and we put all our trust in what he has for us, we are unstoppable. Without God, we are mere weak human beings with no strength or wisdom. We think we can map it all out, but when God sets foot in our lives, forget about it! However, when he starts to direct our path, it's like nothing words can even describe. And when you put together a group of people determined to see God's will be done, amazing and beautiful things are most certainly bound to happen.