healing

Conventions are one of the best places to pick up youth ministry resources. There are usually great discounts and you have tons of time to look around and see what you really need. Sometimes you even are able to attend seminars with the authors. Most of the books or resources I purchase in any given year are picked up at a convention or conference.

I've picked up some of my favorite tools of the trade at past convention: Every Picture Tells a Story and Would You Rather. This year I'm excited about the fun Throw and Tell Ice Breakers Ball and Throw and Tell Storytellers Ball that I purchased at the Group booth. But what was quite telling was the titles of the books that ended up in my hands when I was walking through the Youth Specialties store.

Sunday afternoon I was walking around the YS store and decided to pick up the books I was interested in with the intention of putting some back if the pile got too large. I guess having been a youth minister seven years and having attended four large conventions and four conferences before this, I've already bought a lot of the books I need. Not that I can't still learn more, but I have just become better at recognizing what I'll actually read, what will help the ministry, and what we really need. So, at the end of my stroll around the store I looked down to see what I'd ended up with. I was really surprised to see what it contained (even though *I* was the one that had picked them all up). There were no books on games, skits, or talk-starters. Just about every book in the stack was about why teens are hurting, how society is influencing them, the challenges they are facing, etc. They were all written about different areas of life, from different perspectives.

So, apparently God is putting it on my heart to spend more time learning about the woundedness of young people. I'm not surprised. I heard a talk this fall that really reminded me how our wounds effect so much of who we are and what we do and it has come up in so many conversations since then. Of course the beauty is that God yearns to heal these wounds. So, my prayer right now is to learn more about what is hurting these young people and how to point them to the One that can heal them.

I've got a lot of reading (and praying) to do.