We do this thing called Young Life. We drive to a high school several times each week to befriend the students, to form relationships, to listen to them, and to begin to walk alongside them in life. We are there for the brokenness in families, relationships, friendships, athletics, organizations, and general life. We stick around for the messy bits. Along the crazed, crooked path, and the roller coaster of emotions and challenges that constitute high school, we share the Gospel. We do this thing called Young Life because we want to share Jesus with high school students. We want to share the reason why we are different.
On March 22nd, UT Young Life experienced Placement Night and nearly 200 college freshmen and sophomores got "placed" on Young Life & Wyld Life teams at high schools and middle schools in and around Austin. As is tradition for Placement Night, each Young Life area (Northwest Austin, Austin West, Central Austin, East Austin, Round Rock, Greater Cedar Park, etc.) puts on a skit to show off the humor of the area and of Young Life in general.
As a part of Greater Cedar Park Young Life, we preformed a skit inspired by a pretty popular Superbowl commercial:
So, God made a Young Life Leader!
God said I need somebody willing to get up before dawn and drive through Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and spend all morning at the high school, drive back downtown again, go to class till three and then go back to the high school and stay past ten at the varsity volley ball game.
So, God made a Young Life Leader!
I need somebody with a loud voice. Loud enough that the quarter back will hear him cheering from the stands, and gutsy enough to wade through the student section and stand with a group of complete strangers. Somebody to dress frat, wearing Chacos and a fanny pack, long enough for their high school friends to give them weird looks, make fun of their outfit, and be willing to say I care for you and really mean it.
So, God made a Young Life Leader!
God said “I need someone to simply walk into the most daunting, unwelcoming and intimidating, hostile environment in the entire city. That’s right, the high school lunch room, someone to sit down with kids, watch them eat cafeteria food without commenting on the health of it, hear about all their drama and start a conversation out of thin air. and…who, at the end of lunch whether accepted or rejected will come back the next week, after memorizing names and sit down and do it all over again.
So, God made a Young Life Leader!
God had to have somebody willing to put on a banana costume and like an idiot teach students to peel, peel, peel, chop chop chop, mash mash mash and go go go bananas. Someone willing to get pied, clothespinned, egged, flour bombed, fish slapped, and body slammed and body slammed again, and then again just so that one kid would begin to let down their walls and listen to a club talk.
So, God made a Young Life Leader!
God said, “I need somebody willing to call kids 37 times until they finally hand in their deposit for camp. Someone willing to put uniforms together for the volleyball tournament, chase down health forms and sit on a charter bus for some ungodly amount of time so that kids get to have the best week of their lives, someone who will be the last person asleep in their cabin to make sure their kids don’t escape to ring the bell and someone excited enough to be the loudest most obnoxious person at club so their kids can follow suit. Someone who listens to the club talk and asks hard questions in cabin time so that kids get to see what life is really about.
So, God made a Young Life Leader!
It had to be somebody who’d go deep and be intentional…and not cut corners. Somebody to plan and pray, laugh and cry…and camp and drive and pay and feed and spend the time and earn the right. Somebody to replenish themselves on their own time and then finish a hard weeks work with their own degree to think about. Somebody who’d talk to kids teenagers with the gentleness of a friend, who’d laugh and then sigh…and then respond with smiling eyes, when their young life kid says they want to spend their life “building their own relationship with Jesus Christ.”
So, God made a Young Life Leader!
Finally God needed a group of people to stand up and break out into a spontaneous dance party so God made Greater Cedar Park Young Life!!!
I am a part of Rouse Young Life. We started with five leaders and one team leader. Last year, in 2012, we said goodbye to two leaders, but also welcomed nine new leaders. This year, we dearly two other leaders who left us, but we have also been blessed with six new, bright-faced and eager leaders. Now our team consists of 18 leaders, and we cannot wait to see what is in store. #RouseCity