A youth minister can go through a lot of ups and downs on the best of weeks but add a two and a half hour road trip to the mix, stir in a heaping helping of adolescent energy, add a smidgen of van trouble, a taste of directionally challenged youth sponsors, and don’t forget an extremely late departure, and voila! There you have it in a nutshell, the recipe for a typical youth group road trip for KADASH. Sound familiar? Parents and pastors can I get an amen?
Kadash is a cool Hebrew word that means: to make holy, to sanctify, or set apart as holy. At Midland Heights UMC over here in the West District, we are a melting pot of diverse cultures and backgrounds. It can be a really cool thing when you pack all that ‘diversity‘ into two 15 passenger vans!
When I was asked to write a short piece about our experience at Veritas 2011, I practically leapt at the chance. You see, one of the coolest things about being a youth minister is that you get spiritually fed along with the students, often simply by proxy. What I mean by that is; you get a spiritual lift from serving the Lord as a minister to young people. That’s one of the reasons we do what we do! It feels good, right? So having said this, if all I took home this year from Veritas was the awesome feeling of watching the students have a great time getting to know God and each other, that would have been more than enough. Instead what I took home was an experience. And the experience was nothing short of amazing. Imagine going to a rock concert, or a Broadway opening night. You are at ground ZERO… The energy is palpable. On Saturday morning after a near sleepless night 1200 plus teenagers and some 200 adults descended on Horner Hall at the Hot Springs Convention Center. It is a feeling that is nothing short of electric… Those were the exact words I used to update my Facebook status that morning from my phone! As we filled the huge auditorium to capacity I knew that all of the promises I had made to the students were going to be met and then some. The sheer scope of a conference youth event of this size is enough to make you want to just stand there in awe of what God is doing in the lives of our young people. This event has increased in size considerably in the last several years so much so that the ACCYM had to close registration early this year in order to accommodate the venue’s limitations! As our conference coordinator Michelle Moore said: “This is a good problem to have!”
All of these things are good, but what did God have to say to us on this weekend? That’s the real story, and let me tell you the Holy Spirit was moving. The reason Veritas is so successful is because of the Biblical principal of relationship at work. Our very foundation as United Methodists and Christians is built upon our covenant relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Young people know the power of relationship. It’s the superglue that binds peer groups together, and keeps a youth group growing. But what happens when you take all of these little families and throw them together in a weekend of worship, workshops, and fancy hotels? MINISTRY happens. We are in the business of relationships folks, and from the smallest group with the greenest youth director to the mega church teen army, we gathered under the banner of Christ. As the body we saw lives being changed, proclamations of faith being made, and new relationships being formed. The message of speaker Brent Cambrell convicted both young and old hearts alike.
But all of this begs the question: Is this just a big spiritual pep rally that the youth will forget about when they get home? To get your answer just ask any young adult who was active in district and conference youth, and they will tell you that the friendships and memories built there will not only last a lifetime, but have shaped who they are as Christians today. I can’t personally speak for any but myself, but what I can say without a doubt is that I was able to watch my young inner city squad see the other side of the fence for once, and the smiles didn’t leave their faces the entire weekend. Seeds were planted, and truth be told a lot can happen if… we only take the time to throw a big party and watch God work. Veritas 2011 mission accomplished!
