This is a revised post I made on my FB on Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 2:34am
There is some translation and “sanitized” words in this post, but its mostly original.
Just last week, my Young Adults pastor mentioned that he went to visit another church’s cell or other, skipping ours as a result. I mention something or other about defection only to find myself skipping my own cell this Friday, held at my house no less, to go to (another church’s) Young Adults Ministry/Fellowship.
So malu. :S (So embarrassing)
ANYWAY, my dad was speaking there, so (I had a good reason to tag along). Also haven’t seen the youth pastor, Pastor (******) for quite a while, along with his wife and 2 kids. So why not?
So,
At the end of the sermon, I was chatting with one of the cell leaders, Y, and I was asking about their YA cell, it somehow led to two of the biggest questions churches EVERYWHERE face:
How they get YA people in the church into their cell, and how do you transition college grads into the YA.
Bear in mind I’m asking at what passes for a mega church in Malaysia mind you, one with 5 YA cells, 15 people each. There wasn’t any solid answer. In fact, they too were attempting to address that problem. Y said that they have yet to find a “guaranteed” method, and admitted it was by passive means they get to grow in terms of size.
But that isn’t the point of this note, no no, that was all the background. Summarized.
When we got to the topic about youth transition, she inquired about me working, as most of you know, I’m still studying, gona graduate soon, etc etc.
But what was interesting was her… speech? on why it was important for the youth to get into YA. Thinking back now, I wasn’t sure how we came there, but she was telling me about her experience in an Australian campus ministry and stuff, and her experience coming here to work and basically this is what was being talked about:
Working Adults life and Youth life is very different. You work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, not counting transit time, over time and all dat. It is SOOO easy to not be a Christian when you start work. She mentioned about part of my dad’s sermon when he asked how many people knew backslided Christians. And it’s true, many MANY people’s faith don’t survive graduating and going to work.
Right. Any good Christian knows all this, so why the rush to get youth to join the YA? (yes, I’m finally getting to my point) What she said after that gave me a rush, like WOW.
“When you graduate and start working, you start feeling the pressure of time, commitment, of expectations to your boss, family and friends. You can’t go back to your youth for help, cos they are still youth. And you are not close to the YA group, cos you are not in it. What happens then? It is at this point, that Christians are among the most vulnerable.”
(emphasis mine)
Yes, she said vulnerable. It hit me, this is it, that THE stuff. At that “middle gap” between youth and YA, with no one to turn to, what happens? Especially if you are overseas, away from your home church, or you shift away from your church to work in another state.
While I always knew it was important for the transition to take place somehow somewhere for SOMEreason, she perfectly pointed out the single most vulnerable part of that particular timeperiod of a Christian’s life. It is then, that starting a new job stress(commitments and expectations) really really tests your faith. And if the best person you can turn to doesn’t know jack about what you are saying, merely nodding their head, “yea, my assignments are killing me too”…
Well, that sucks.
If you got any comments on this, either methodology (besides dragging em to cell) or otherwise, do post.
Note: kinda didn’t regret skipping Cell today. 😛
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Something I wrote quite a while back. Decided to skip giving you guys woes of the feminine side for a while. 😀 Thinking of What Ifs recently, oh well.
God, Games and Girls 
