The Courage to Be

Today Andrew Esqueda joins our team of regular contributors. Andrew is the Director of Youth and Family Ministries at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. He is a theology nerd who loves thinking, writing, and speaking about the intersection of theological doctrine and ministry. He is married to Megan and has an awesome 2 year old son named Isaiah.

If you had asked me just a couple of years ago what it means to do youth ministry I would have most likely said, “youth ministry at its core is walking alongside youth and families in faith.” Now, to a large extent, that’s a core principle that I still hold to, however, my understanding of youth ministry has developed immensely.

The development of my understanding of youth ministry has been a process, but one that really began to take shape over the last four years. These last four years of ministry coupled with a transition to a new church, and my own personal life and struggles, has taught me that the most important contributing factor to human flourishing is the ability to “be”. It’s the ability to throw your hands up, to take a step back, and simply say, in the famous words of Popeye, “I am what I am.” It’s the acknowledgement of your own situation, your own humanness, your unique place in life.

So, when I say that I do Youth Ministry, what I really mean is that I try and create spaces for people to simply “be”. Spaces where sexuality and gender identities are embraced, where the pressures of life and school can be let go, where suffering is communal, and where questions of life and faith can safely be engaged. As a youth minister I want to create spaces that subvert the normativity of titles and monikers for they are products of ideologies, and ideologies are products of systems, and systems ultimately fail when confronted with the truth that we are all just human.

Youth ministry as a discipline and profession has for so long been focused on the systems needed in order to develop lifelong disciples of Jesus, but while we were all busy creating and refining our systems we forgot that we minister to humans. Systems are concerned with the carrying out, and implementation, of systems; they are always concerned about what is next in the systematic model. Humans and human experiences are fluid ­ they don’t fall in line with systems, they’re not systematic and predictable.

The truth is that there is no faith system, developmental system, or youth ministry system that can meet the needs of a young person damaged by the suicide of a friend. There is no system that can speak into the life of a young person experiencing the pain of divorce. There is no system that can answer a student’s longing question of why God allows pain and suffering in the world. There is no system that can meet the needs of students and their families for we are not experientially homogenous, we are humans uniquely created by a God who values our individual particularities and experiences.

In order for youth ministry to be a success ­in any manner of the word ­ it must promote authentic humanness and the courage to “be”. Without the promotion of the courage to “be”, our students may move on to the next step in accordance with the systems we have subjected them to. I fear, however, that the next step just might leave faith in its tracks.