The Burden for Youth

Youth groups break my heart.  It seems a bit daft, I'm sure, but every time I see a group of teenagers whose hearts are so clearly focused on God, it moves me in a way that Christ-centered adults often cannot.  For years, I couldn't quite pinpoint why I got so emotional when I saw teens give their testimony or put on dramatic productions at church, and thought (rather self-centeredly) that it was some sort of mourning for the innocent way I myself had once viewed matters of faith.

I can recall so clearly the way I and my peers had thrown ourselves so whole-heartedly into our relationship with God when we were that age, and then I saw how many of us turned our backs fully on God as young adults, and how very few of us have returned to God now, even 20 years later.  

It is rare that I think about such things though (see above re: self-centered), only really in moments like this morning at service as the teenagers of our church gathered around their new youth pastor.  Instead of feeling joy for the sweetness of their devotion to God, or a prayerful fear that they will be protected from the world as they grow up, it is a crushing sadness that gives me tunnel-vision for the thought of the ones (and there will be many) who will completely renounce their faith in the coming years.

I cannot comprehend the way youth pastors must feel every Spring as they watch their seniors graduate, and know that the kids whom they have just poured so much love and time and commitment into for the past four, five, or more years are now on their own, to make their own decisions, all of a sudden without the guidance of their parents or their youth pastors.  

They trust in God, of course.  Of course, right?  Or does it cause them so much pain they can barely make it through yet another year of ministry?