Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

For those of you who don't know, my full time vocation/ job is being a Youth and Family Coordinator at St. Paul's Lutheran in Wilmington. I have many many different hats and responsibilities. One of them is overseeing the programming for our youth ministry. 

Typically, our Youth Group is for Grades 6- 12, but we are in a weird spot coming out of covid, so I've been inviting our 5th grade to join together. It's taking some navigation, but I'm making it work for this year. 

Tonight, we had our monthly fellowship time. While I want youth group to be a place where kids learn about themselves, learn about God, and grow in their faith, I also want them to feel connected to each other, so on occasion, we do "fun stuff". The middle school students wanted to go to Barnes and Noble (Y'all, I seriously can't tell you the last time I walked into a bookstore before this outing- I love to read, but its usually the library for me), so I tacked dinner on the tale end.

1 8th grade and 3 5th grade students gathered together for this event. As comical as it was, I am highly impressed with each and every one of them. They definite inspire me in so many ways! From the way that they deal with the harsh realities of life at their age, from the way they come together even though covid has kept them apart, and for the way they care (as best as any 5th grader can) about each other is amazing to hear and watch. 

I'm inspired to keep on pressing on.. it's easy to get down when the majority of our church teens don't show up. It's difficult when I get questions from our older generation asking where all the kids are because they aren't in worship. It's easy to want to give up when I don't get responses from parents or teens and have no idea who is showing up to a event, have to cancel an event, or ponder if we should even attempt certain things in the future. 

 Yet, the 4 that I had tonight are worth showing up for. They are worth the effort of figuring out plans, of sending out reminders, of going back out after a long morning of worship when dealing with crazy allergy issues, and are worth trying to gather together in ways possible that hopefully will shape and form them. Eventually, we will get back into some lesson type stuff and incorporate it into the fun, but for now, these moments when we are learning about each other, its definitely inspiring. 

This week, this Monday, who is inspiring you to keep on? Who is worth it? Who is calling out to you, making you want to be a better you? Who do you show up for?