Lead a Weblog for Young Adult Leaders

Worn out by doing ministry alone? Want your ministry with young adults to last? How do you dive beyond the ‘fun event’ into true substance in your teaching? Threads author, Mike Harder, discusses some of the difficulties and challenges facing this tasks.

I realized that this concept of just dreaming about what something could be, or what you want it to be, is a practice that I just don’t do enough of. Granted, that summer our team met many of those audacious goals and didn’t meet others, but as I even reflected on that summer experience, I was encouraged to see how many of those goals came to fruition, primarily because we identified them as a team and worked toward them.

Years ago, I asked a college student friend of mine how she was doing and got this response: “My mom is a heroin addict and I just want to kill myself. How do you think I’m doing?”

That was a pivotal point in a journey I’d been on for a long time. All around me, fellow students were going through various trials and life difficulties. While some of my friends worked things out in a healthy manner, many others were unable to do so, experiencing feelings of isolation and desperation. Depression was also a constant reality. It was during that stage that I really began to ask myself: How can I help my friends? I’m not a therapist or a counselor. I want to do something, but what?

I took notice around me at something that I hadn’t really paid much attention to before: all around me passed people of various ethnicities and various ages—all here for different reasons. I think the reason all of this struck me is how diverse the YMCA is compared with my church.