Ever feel like you are beating your head against the wall in youth ministry? I know I do. You invest your time and energy in the youth group and you just don’t see any change. You start to wonder if it is time to give up.

Here’s my latest analogy. God blessed me with the opportunity to attend the International Association for the Study of Youth Ministry meeting in England this month. Since I have friends in Scotland, I flew into Glasgow and trained down to Cambridge for the meeting. I found a cheap train ticket on the Internet and booked it without looking at it too close. So, I left Glasgow on a train to York. I got to York at about midnight and had a lay-over of almost four hours. It was freezing cold and I couldn’t find any place in the station to get warm. So, I got creative. I wandered into a nearby hotel; the night manager had pity on me and let me sit there for a few hours. (It felt a little like a “no room at the inn” story.) At 3:50 A.M. I got back on the train . . . this time to Leeds. You would think I went to sleep, but I was so concerned about missing the stop that I kept my eyes open. At Leeds, I had a 30-minute layover and boarded a train bound for Peterborough. I had about an hour at the Peterborough Station, but I knew I was about to board the final train to Cambridge. I started feeling pretty good. So good that I boarded a train headed the wrong way and ended up in Stamford. The conductor was helpful and suggested I train to Ely and then connect into Cambridge.

Okay, so what does this prove except that I am a total idiot when it comes to travel? Well, I made it to the conference. I made it because of two things: I knew where I was going and I didn’t give up.

Youth ministry is like that. You need to know where you are going. I think that means three primary things for those of us in youth ministry in a small church:

1. You want to see your kids become mature followers of Christ.
2. You want to develop a community of faith that reaches out to lost kids and builds up the saved kids.
3. You want to see the kingdom of God advance by making the love of Christ known in words and actions.

None of that will happen overnight. There will be sleepless nights. There will be times you get on the wrong train. There will be missed opportunities and mismanaged relationships.

But don’t give up.

Be faithful and trust God and he will work through you.