Once when I was not so carefully easing all of my 280 pounds into a favorite patio chair, I heard “cuh-dank!”, the sound of an iron spring snapping like a frozen green bean.  They just don’t make wrought iron like they used to…

Mind you, I’ve sent more plastic chairs to the Rubbermaid graveyard than I can count. And, I would be less than honest if I told you that fewer than five restaurant owners have, after sizing me up, protected their furniture investment by offering me a “more comfortable” chair. But wrought iron?  C’mon! What’s next? Cypress beams?

And you might imagine my humiliation as I looked up and saw my son, looking down upon his “hero,” legs up, flat backed, Diet Dr. Pepper dripping from his ears, grasping the arm of a once “lifetime” chair, now laid to waste. His look of shock and disappointment reminded me of the day he learned that his nursing days were over.  Not a father’s proudest moment.

And it won’t be my last.

A day will come when my little boy realizes that his dad, mom and other adults he admires are as broken as his daddy’s once invincible chair.  This realization—that people are not perfect, life’s not easy and the world is not as it “should be”—left untended, leaves many young people disillusioned and searching.

Today, this search looks less like docile, polite, and respectful students mining the wisdom of religious sages, and more like disenchanted, skeptical and apathetic antagonists prodding the antiquated religious institution.

Reaching out to these young people means meeting them on their turf. Not a coffee shop or even a sporting event, but at the intersection of our authenticity and their reality.

Ministering among younger generations is a complex process of helping them reconcile their idealistic expectations with the people, events and even a God, who fall short of meeting them.

This rarely occurs upon the heady heights of Ministry Mountain. It’s most often found in life’s muddy trenches where hopes are dashed, Santas have become dads with a midnight sweet tooth and holy people are hurt people who sometimes hurt others.

The formation of a healthy spirituality that accounts for imperfect heroes, sinner saints and a seemingly whimsical God who allows bad things to happen to good people, does not happen accidentally.

It happens when we become a safe place for young people to vent their anger, express their confusion and disappointment—with us, the Church, their parents, their friends, the world and yes, even God. This does not happen overnight.

It happens in the context of relationships. It happens when we choose not to do other things in order to spend time, with one young person building a foundation of trust. It happens when we resolve to be compassionate before we judge, connect before we chastise and help heal before we help instruct.

I’m not recommending you lay aside your Bibles, reach for the Kleenex and shape otherwise resilient kids into overly dramatic talk show victims.

But ignoring their disenchanted spirit thinking that it will somehow “work itself out” once kids commit to Christ, is naïve. And when we communicate this to them it reinforces their assumption that we are disconnected “yes men” for God, the Church or adult-dom and are more concerned with our ministry, catechetical or parental agenda than with loving them in the messy, complex and often paradoxical experiences of their real lives.

The starting point of all Christian ministry is  acknowledging the reality of our own lives and seeking God’s presence there–in the ordinary, unromantic and often disappointing experiences—and helping others to do the same.

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