With all the excitement brewing over the up and coming “Catching Fire” movie, which is the second book in Suzanne Collins trilogy “The Hunger Games” I thought I would share some insight about The Hunger Games and Youth Ministry. Now my wife will probably get a laugh out of this idea, because she has knows that us youth pastors love to take movies, songs, books and “geek” them out for youth ministry! But I promise I will try to not “geek” this article out too bad 🙂
I have been thinking more about youth ministry and the students and families I serve more than usual lately. In that thinking I’ve began to realize that youth ministry is a lot like training our students and families to be missionaries and knowing the big picture of Scripture and not just games, gimmicks and a “devotional” to top the night off with. I am all about having fun and I enjoy seeing our students having fun and laughing, but I hope that I care more about them than to just give them a fun time in youth and send them home. My hope and prayer is that every one of our students who enter through our doors are being trained and equipped into missionaries who will take the Gospel and share it with a lost and dying world. I want our students and families to see how their lives should grow out of the mission of God!
Students, whether in middle school or high school are not just adolescents or children trying to finish their school years. They are young men and women who are growing towards making an impact in the adult world. So, this is where my “inner geek” comes out in my example of The Hunger Games. In book 1, we meet a character by the name of Haymitch who is a former Hunger Games victor and current drunkard. His role is to help lead Katniss and Peeta not to just survival but to victory. Despite Haymitch’s perpetual state of drunkenness, he ultimately provides counsel and aid in the mission of his two protégés. Unlike The Hunger Games we do not live in a fictional world tat is set in the future. We live in a real world now! And we have an even greater task which is to provide training and support for a generation of students who have a much greater mission than just survival. Like Haymitch, we must not only be ready to help our students survive, we must help them fulfill the mission of God and in so doing, find life.
Are we training and equipping our students and children to serve God as missionaries in this world? Are we teaching them to be missionaries in their day-to-day activities and adventures? Aside from the drunkenness part, I hope that I am equipping and aiding my students and families with the Gospel, so that they may become missionaries sharing the Gospel in this dark and dying world.
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