Have you ever had a genius idea that went south? I’m sort of notorious for this sort of thing. In my previous student ministry we were very active in the realm of community service. We were always looking for ways to jump in and do something positive in our city. We called our service ministry “splagXnon.” It’s Greek for compassion—the kind of compassion that comes from your guts. Well, at least I think that’s what it means. It’s been about 10 years since Biblical Greek 201. [Side note…yes, I was that guy who used random Greek words to name everything from bible study groups to Dixie cups.]
So, I got this idea that we would clean up the town. OK, that’s kind of a lie. The truth is I was really annoyed by how much trash was in the vacant lot across the street from my apartment complex. I kept thinking to myself, “Someone should clean that crap up!” Then I came up with the brilliant scheme that my students should clean it up.
So, at our next service project I split the group into teams and told them that whoever came back with the most trash would win something awesome. And by the way, there was a ton of trash in a specific vacant lot on Snow Rd. Whoever cleaned up that lot would probably win the competition. Oh, and it just happened to be across the street from my apartment. Total coincidence.
Now, in my head I was imagining groups coming back with only two or three garbage bags of trash. I mean, there was a ton of trash in that vacant lot but only of the paper and plastic variety. What actually happened blew my mind. My students came back with couches, tires, discarded recliners, ginormous rolls of carpet, paint cans for days and a quarter million trash bags. I’m not exactly sure what happened but I’m pretty sure the winning team broke into a landfill.
In the end there was a small mountain of trash decorating the lawn of our church. Why the lawn? Well, I may have overlooked the need for extra dumpsters. I’m the guy who comes up with the big idea and forgets to cover the critical details—like dumpsters for example. Needless to say, my senior pastor was not a fan of my “splagXnon”. It probably wouldn’t have been that bad but the “splagXnon” lawn ornament stayed for over a week. You can always count on trash removal guys to ruin your relationship with your senior pastor. Psh…jerks. Worst of all, the students didn’t clean up a single thing in the vacant lot.
Basically, nothing good came out of that experience, well other than that it helped to reshape how I think about students and serving. I learned that students think big. Not only that but they hope. Unlike most adults, students still believe they can do something huge–like clean up an entire town or change the world. In other words, our students still believe that the Gospel can do what Jesus said it could.
There are times when we as youth pastors and volunteers are guilty of forcing our students into a box–the box of what we’re comfortable with. At some point we stop believing that God really can use us to change the world. And then we somehow think we’re doing kids a favor by reigning in their passion. What if, when we do this, we are fighting against what God is doing in that student’s heart? I wish I had a DeLorean so I could go back in time and change every, “That’s a cool idea Johnny but it will never actually work” into, “That’s a cool idea Johnny. Go for it! I’ll be right behind you cheering you on.”
And yet, with all that said, couldn’t they at least have cleaned up that vacant lot across my apartment?
