Youth ministry at its worst

I am so cynical. Why? What made me this way? Whose fault is it? Who is to blame?

Is it even a BAD thing?

What scares me is that most of my cynicism (or holy discontent), is directed at my fellow Christians. I am willing to give pre-believers a pass because “you can’t blame the world for being worldly.” But when Christians behave badly, I get agitated.

I’m not necessarily talking about sin.

For example… here I am at my local Starbucks on my typical Sunday morning, reading, studying, relaxing, and in the middle of the serenity that is cappuccino machines and Sergio Mendes and light conversation, bursts a whirling tornado of screams, laughter, dirty jokes, body odor, and “Man, I gotta take a dump”s. This tornado has another, much more obvious name: a youth group on a road trip to summer camp. Having been a professional youth pastor for over 8 years now, I recognized this trend immediately before the entire group made it in. The giveaway signs were the sporting of last years summer camp shirt (which I own and wear on yard work days), the cutdowns, and the immediate disregard for the Starbucks ‘partners’, property, and customers. And the youth pastor had NO control. I at least call the places we plan on stopping at before summer camp so we can give the manager a heads up that they will be invaded by 60 junior high students. But Starbucks?!

I am annoyed. Annoyace = blog.

But what really has me scared is that this morning as I was driving in, I asked God to teach me something about Him, myself, or both. Somewhere in this perfect storm in a 15-passenger van is a lesson for me, and I am not sure I can figure it out or if I want to.

Can you help me?