#ylleader

At first I'm like

Then I realize no school means no Young Life and I'm like

Leaders be like

That’s a tough issue. I had a similar experience when I was a leader, but please keep in mind I don’t know exactly what your area director said verbatim, nor do I know the specific needs or background of your region. I can offer you my perspective, but as with everything you read and hear, take it with a grain of salt and a prayerful spirit. 

I had a YL girl who was active in her church’s youth group and occasionally came to YL as well. Church was a community that she shared with her family and with a group of people she had grown up with; YL was more of an escape from people who “knew” her, where she could explore her relationship with Christ in a new way. I was happy to have her at club when she could make it, but I largely didn’t pressure her to choose one or the other. 

During a time of struggle in her life, she came to me for advice and mentoring, which I was happy to offer to her. As we talked, though, she kept mentioning differing opinions and options she had received from her church’s youth group leader (who, I must add, was an extremely wise, loving, and rooted leader). She needed to get her footing on a level path; instead, she was trying to keep each foot on a different path and hoping she could balance her life between them. She was exposing her heart in a vulnerable place multiple times and picking the answers that fit in her comfort zone (not necessarily the ones that would heal her heart). This wasn’t helpful, nor was it healthy. 

As the wise Jim Eliot once said, “Wherever you are, be all there.” Shallow wading in two pools is fine and a part of the journey (Ezekiel 47:3), but you won’t get the same experience as diving deeply into one. It’s like my bum knee - sometimes I put Icy Hot on it, sometimes I wear a brace. At some point, though, I’m going to need surgery to fix it. The two aren’t bad choices, and they help to some degree, but healing is going to come from one deep and probably painful place. Sometimes we have to choose the path that is right for us at that particular moment in our lives.

"Young Life" and "Church" do not necessarily exclude each other.  They are both good, and they both serve the Kingdom. But when you’re stepping into a place of leadership or into a place of discipleship, you must focus on where your gifts can be shared (1 Peter 4:10) and your heart can be fully rendered (Joel 2:13). There is a reason I don’t lead Young Life AND lead a church youth group AND perform in a traveling circus. I want to be all in, with all my heart (Colossians 3:23-24). 

My advice? Pray. Watch and listen to both groups, and choose the place where your relationship with Jesus will grow in the way it needs to right now. Maybe it’s YL. Maybe it’s your church. Maybe it’s both. Maybe (get this) it’s neither one. 

Because at the end of the day, it’s not about church or Young Life or an area director or who has the better snacks or numbers or people.

It’s about the Director. It’s about Jesus. 

Choose Him over people. Seek truth and love. Be all there. And rest in the fact that neither place makes you any more or less loved and chosen by Him, nor does either place control your story: 

"In his heart, man plans the way, but the Lord determines his steps." Proverbs 16:9