Youth Ministry....and Starbucks

As I sit just inside a local Starbucks here in Chesapeake VA, I am

struck by how similar the crowd of customers are in these places. Why is that? Really, what is Starbucks? A classy, fun little place to hang out with friends and sip over-priced coffee like a hipster.

As I look over, I notice a guy in his early thirties sitting in the corner in one of the overstuffed chairs with a venti iced tea reading a paperback novel. The well trimmed goatee, graphic t'shirt, and All-Starr kicks give him away....the classic youth minister. I don't know what it is about these environments, but they positively breed these guys. You know the ones I mean, those guys who really should be classified as "adults," but since they spend so much time with the teenagers in their youth groups, they are caught in some awkward limbo between hip teenager and mature adult. The goatee is like a statement - "I am cool. I am mature and wise and older: but I am cool."

I know these guys, several of my friends are these guys. They spend their evenings "hanging out" with the teens, doing many team-bonding activities, (the kind that involve toilet paper, silly string, water balloons, and lots of Mountain Dew and Pizza.) They spend their weekends on retreats and lock-ins, implementing crazy and creating ways of communicating Biblical truths to kids whose attention spans rival those of hummingbirds on six cups of coffee. And if they are those hard-core, full-time youth pastors, their mornings are spent in the church office, dealing with angry janitors, (yes, playing "chubby bunny" in the church gym and failing to clean up the aftermath was probably a really bad idea...) Not to mention the calls from parents wondering why their little Johnny hasn't been "cured" of his unhealthy interest in such devilish activities as smoking and video-gaming, or occasionally a concerned visit by the head pastor, as he stops by to check up on how the "spiritual vitality" of the group is doing...(and somehow, he never can seem to understand that slouching in beanbags playing halo and gorging on pepperoni pizza is a form of mentoring...) And somewhere in all of this activity, this youth pastor has to find time to make sure he is taking time to focus oh his relationship with the Lord.

So as I look over at the guy in the graphic tee and kicks calmly sipping his iced tea and reading his paperback, I can't help but smile. Because I know that as calm and mellow as his life looks right now, he really is one of the great spiritual leaders in the body of Christ today. A "Moses" in disguise, a David with a hip goatee... While he has to deal with all of the stress and frustration, (and perhaps identity crisis,) that his job entails, I also know that he spends his nights in prayer for his students, earnestly interceding for them before the throne of his true Boss, thanking Him for the privilege of being given these precious lives for a time, and praying for the wisdom and strength to lead them to to an ever closer walk with Him.

So I guess you never quite know who you might run into at Starbucks on a Friday afternoon...but if you see that guy, be sure to give him a smile....don't let the disguise fool you, this little venti tea and paperback break is well-deserved for this modern-day Moses....