There are not many times in youth ministry where I can remember being intimidated. However there is a time when I am intimidated almost every time and that is when I go to what I call an away game, a student’s school. When I first got into youth ministry the Director of Rochester Area Youth for Christ Grary Kadansky challenged the local youth pastors to go to schools to visit with students and get to know them lost for the sake of Christ. This sounded like a good idea to me. So I jumped through the necessary whoops of paper work, background checks, and meeting with principals, phone calls, parent letters and everything else. Finally it was time do it. My first school visit was a cold wintery day and I was going to meet a student in the youth group who attended Mayo high school in Rochester. As I was mentally preparing for this I had no idea what it was going to be like.

Overall High school was a very positive place for me, Isaac, when I was a student. However, I know it is also a place with some of the toughest people on earth and I had been out of the game for some time. It is tough to be a highschooler. I wasn’t a highschooler anymore and now I was going to attend one for a lunch hour and I feared I was going to look as out of place as I felt. I was going into it with some tricks up my sleeve and they were candy and cards. I grew up playing games with friends and also there is a commonality with people when you receive food from them especially some good ol chocolate.

Well for those of you who know how Rochester school district works then you probably know that students get about 45 minutes too long for lunch, so with plenty of time to kill I got to know the guys who were sitting around me and then eventually I broke out the cards. Up to this point I could feel a bit of uneasiness in the air as to why I was even here. I explained to all of them who I was and that I just really like teenagers (in a non creepy way of course). And I was just there to hang out with them. Well we broke out the game of spoons and luckily this good ol game from the depression was a hit. I got to see experience a little bit of life with them and I enjoyed it very much.

I still try to visit a school at very minimum one a month and more if I can. I feel like you have to win the away games before you can do anything to bring them to the home field. I have many other stories about going to schools and I will share them on the blog as time goes on but I thought you would all enjoy my first time going to a school as a youth pastor.

Your zinc riced,

ike