One of the greatest lessons I ever learned about ministry, and especially ministry to young men, was presented to me in my early college years. I was attending a leadership conference with InterVarsity and the Regional Director was talking about how to lead a Bible Study. We had discussed how to pick a passage and prep a passage and group dynamics and inductive methods and servant leadership and integrity and incarnational ministry and numerous other details surrounding successful scripture application. I was soaking it up, trying to figure out how to most efficiently use my time to become the best bible study leader ever. Then the speaker began talking about relationships, and how to build them with college students. His strategy? Pure, dumb time.
Before people are willing to mine the depths of scripture with you, before they are willing to accept your leadership, before they are real with how their spirits are being worked over...they must have some relationship with you. There must be some trust established. If they do not trust you with the mundane events of their day-to-day lives then how will they trust you with the life-changing details of their spiritual journey? You can try to buy that trust through amazing them with credentials, achievements, success, money, books, degrees, medals, titles or charisma. Depending on the individual, that sometimes works. However, the most reliable method of earning the trust of young people is time. Pure, dumb time.
Pure, dumb time looks like listening to stories, playing games, eating, studying, just hanging out and spending time together. Time is a choice, an investment. It communicates to the other person that out of everything you could be doing, out of everyone you could be with...you chose them. You valued them. There is tremendous affirmation in who you spend time with, even if the time itself seems fairly unproductive. When I choose to play or read with my kids instead of including them in my multi-tasking, it is an affirmation to them that I think they are the greatest people in the world. Very few things communicate as loudly as attention.
You know who have mastered the art of pure, dumb time? My Joel's Place staff. Leah makes arts and crafts with the kids. She sits at the front desk and just talks and draws and looks at pictures and listens to music. Jon is the self-proclaimed "Master of the Ping-Pong table." He is constantly playing games and repairing skate boards and skating in the park. Kelli always has her door open to talk or listen. She knows every kids' name, their family, their school and what they did over the summer. On the surface, this does not look like very serious work. "Seriously, they get paid for playing?" Well, yes. And they get paid for the important conversations they have after they playing. The same kid who comes to Jon to help with a broken skateboard will also come to him for help with a broken home. The kids who share their favorite music with Leah also share their hopes and dreams and ask for her input. The homeless youth who knows that Kelli cares about his summer job also knows that she cares about where he will be sleeping tonight.
You do not get to the heart of young people, especially young men, without investing in the superficial pieces of their lives.
We are in the process of hiring a cafe manager...which means that we have been without one for about 2 months now. For the past two weeks I have been running the cafe, shopping and cooking the meals. It has been frustrating knowing that there are lots of pieces of my normal duties that I cannot get to because of this additional role. It has been frustrating having kids come in, complain about the food (which has been quite good I might add), sit and ignore me and then leave without a word. There are other things that I need to be doing.
And then I remember pure, dumb time. I remember that it is through the mundane that we build trust. I remember that relational stability is not a given in their lives, that new people arrive with the expectation of abandonment and disappointment. I remember that they are watching, whether they hide it or not. I remember that many of them have not eaten all day and they scarf the food down even though it is not a donut. I remember that this is foundational work that I am doing. The depth will come later. There will be a window of opportunity to speak into their lives. There will be laughter and tears and hope. But for tonight, we're having tacos.
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