Wednesday, November 12, 2008

In the Garden

Not long after starting in youth ministry, I was reading an article in either Group Magazine or Youth Works magazine.  I honestly don't know which of the two.  I ran across this advice, "Show them the God of love and joy...'Relish it. Remember it.' They're going to need it someday when it's their turn to pray in the garden [of Gethsemane]."  There are many tidbits of advice, theology, psychology, crowd control, and so on that I routinely remind myself of.  This remains one of the most important in my mind and in practice.

Since reading that, we've had tragedies in the community, in individual lives, and I have seen how powerful those words remain.

Yes, they need to know the morality, the theology, the history.  But they need to know how to not only survive the tragedies of life, but to come out of those Gardens of Gethsemane into the light of the Resurrection.  

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