If Steve Prefontaine were in my youth group...

Many years ago, Steve Prefontaine said this: "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." How true.

At the risk of alienating my high school students...I would like to make a confession. I love Jr. High youth ministry. High school is fun...but it really can't hold a candle to that of Jr. High ministry. You get more tears, more laughing, more gross stuff, more stupid stuff going on than any other job in the world. I am seriously considering inviting Mike Rowe to do a Dirty Jobs episode during Wednesday night youth group. Jr. High age is a blast.

I particularly love the challenge of it. High School students will give you the benefit of the doubt. They will go along with stuff. If an element fails, they can fill in the gaps and understand what you meant. If an illustration or lesson bombs, they are still able to get something out of it. They walk in wanting to hang out with their friends and wanting to learn for the most part. At this point in their lives, if they don't want to be there, they don't have to be there.

Jr. High kids on the other hand, you have to WOW them. Everything has to look thought out. You have to earn their trust. You have to make worship an experience for them. Simply put, you have to entertain to teach. They will tell you what they think. If it sucked, they will let you know. If it was great, they might not say anything.

We live in an age where mediocrity is celebrated, and sub par is idolized. William Hung, YouTube, and Anima are all examples of shoddy productions making it big. This works fine for video, but when it comes to real life stuff, Jr. High students expect the most of all. However, Youth ministry for some time seems to have forgotten that. Forgotten them. To be honest, most high school youth group kids will look past below average worship or lesson, but middle school kids are pickier. Whether it be their natural tendency towards ADHD or their lack of focus, in my experience the greater the level and quality of worship the better the kids will worship. It takes little to get a Jr. High mind off track, so I guess my job is to eliminate those distractions (be it below average musical worship, building noise, poor lesson structure, or a booger hangin' out of my nose, or an element gone horribly awry).

Let's face it, they are not the crowning jewel of ministry. At Jr. High age they are no longer cute to work with (children's ministry), beaming with the future in mind and the next world changers(high school/college age), or voting citizens who keep their problems to themselves (adult ministry). They are the middle men, past the age of innocence, but still waiting to become important (as youth ministries some times portray them as).

My question is this: Why does Jr. High get relegated to things? Don't they deserve our best?

Jr. High ministries commonly have less sponsors (if you have ever been to a Jr. High YG you have realized they definitely need more than High School; but what CPCC might lack in quantity, we make up for in quality), a not as talented band leading them, second hand lessons brought down from the High School meeting last week. Believe, a CIY event, challenged me to really think about Jr. High ministry. They showed me that a student ministry with Jr. High in mind can do wonders, can in fact change lives at a much more accelerated rate than say an adult ministry or children's ministry.

This is my call to all youth ministers out there who will ever read this:
Middle school students feel lost all the time...they feel constantly that better things await them and it is a travesty to treat them that way in ministry. They feel looked over by churches all the time: too young to do the cool high school stuff, but to old to get the candy and attention at children's church. The last thing they need is for churches to treat them the same way that society does.

I am have been thinking these last couple weeks about the quality and effort that I put forth when it comes to Jr. High ministry...It is my hope that no Jr. High student will ever say what I heard on student say a many years back at a former church of mine.

Riley (age 12), just after hearing his youth minister was leaving: "Just when I was finally going to get to spend time with him he is leaving."

For those whose best is yet to come, let us give our best now.