Confessions from a Leader

"These are my confessions..."

Before I digress into belting Usher at the top of my lungs allow me to confess something.

My friend and I were hanging out and she started asking the deep questions. You know the kind. The ones that sneak into your brain but you quickly avoid by succumbing to Netflix's pressure to play yet another episode. Throughout the course of our conversation she finally landed on a sentence that I clearly can't shake:

"Your identity is in your relationships."

WHAT! Umm no! My identity is in Christ. Well, sorta? I mean most of the time right? I got defensive as most people do rather than letting the truth do it's job and work on my heart. She followed up by asking what is my biggest fear to which I quickly responded "Being alone."

Point proven. You win. So now what?

Yes, my identity is in my relationships. Yes, I am a Young Life leader. In fact, I'm on Young Life staff. Everything started to click into place. It is no wonder that I have continuously wrestled with my identity being in Young Life. When things are going well I'm on Cloud Nine. I ride the roller coaster of club emotions like I'm the only person on the ride. When things plummet to the bottom I find myself in the deepest and darkest of despair. I have thrown my fair share of pity parties because things weren't going well. No one was texting back. Boo hoo and so on and so forth. Even writing it down is painful to admit.

So I decided to unhitch myself and try to get off the roller coaster. I got hobbies. I got friends. I even got a dog. Eventually it got a little better. I didn't cry when I sat in the car after club. Things felt a little more free and less dependent on the outcome. And yet after a year and a half of wrestling I still wasn't there yet. That is until finally it clicked with my friend's strong and truthful words. I was treating the symptoms and not the actual disease. The symptoms of my emotional connections, of my joys and pains, and thought it was all because of Young Life.

If my identity is in my relationships and I'm in a relational ministry it is no wonder I wrestle. I confess I take pride in how many friends I have, how many likes (both literally and figuratively) I receive. I enjoy keeping in touch. When it's all said and done I want people to look back and say "wow she was such a good friend." When my relationships aren't going well I take it as a personal hit because my relationships are what I'm all about. At times the very center of my being hinges upon how these relationships perform or feel, what a terrible prison cell I've built for myself.

But there is good news. Because I now know where my identity tends to lie, now I can invite Christ into that brokenness and ask for healing. I am a daughter of the Most High King. I have settled for a prison cell and surrounded myself with just enough relationships to be comfortable, yet Jesus has opened the door and calls me out. Price paid. Sentence served. GET OUT! I can ask Jesus for help and forgiveness, that in the midst of being about Him I got lost along the way. I started being about everyone else and about myself. I can now look to Christ instead of everything around me. I can put my hope in the One who never changes. The One who always texts back. The One who desires relationship more than I ever could. "On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand."

May that be our anthem. May we firmly and securely place our hope and being in Jesus and Jesus alone. Not even our relationship with Him, but just Him.

Just Jesus.

why i'm still checking facebook

"i'm not checking facebook any more!" this is the familiar cry of my people: the single among us.
"can we just go ahead and name it engagement-book or babybook already?" i chime in as i awkwardly check my teeth for any leftover spinach dip, as if my shot at engagement photos is liable to waltz into the room and sweep me off my feet at any moment. alas, he doesn't, and any free roaming spinach particles live to see another day.

this is an all too regular scene for me these days. in the midst of friends i'm afraid i've become more of a wedding basher than a wedding crasher. i can see it now: jennifer lawrence would play the main character, a cynical single girl who has just purchased her 4th dog and lives in a disheveled yet artsy apartment in the charming southern city of nashville, tn. she attends all of these weddings just to write a sassy column in the local newspaper bashing the weddings and the whole institution of marriage. eventually she will of course fall in love with a wedding photographer but let's not spoil the ending. hey it's my movie and i want to be jennifer lawrence in nashville okay? cut me some slack...

but in all seriousness i need to confess something: in an attempt to look independent and nonchalant i've become very sarcastic about marriage. i've found myself getting a little bitter about the fact that all of my friends seem to be planning the wedding of the century while my future consists of saying yes to the bridesmaid's dress. i've very suddenly been convicted by it all and it's time for me to set the record straight.

single people: first of all we are in our 20's. this means most of us still have another 20 years before our reproductive organs quit on us. THERE. IS. TIME. secondly, we have got to stop being so bitter about marriage. instead of complaining about another wedding or how we will end up all alone we need to start celebrating! our friends have chosen the path less traveled and certainly the path less continued. shouldn't we be ecstatic that in a world full of divorce our friends are willing to commit to life together? we're feeding into the problem when we say things like "another one bites the dust." our friends deserve our enthusiasm! it's our job to be supportive of the fact that two people are entering into one of God's greatest gifts: marriage. He could've made life to be lived alone but instead He made it so we can partner with someone and do it together. so when we say yes to being a bridesmaid or RSVP to a reception we're really saying yes to God's calling in their life. let's put our positive pants on and start seeing the big picture here.

married people: you're not off the hook. stop telling all of us single people how HARD marriage is. do you know that's all we hear about? i think in an attempt to make us feel better you have this need to downplay your marriage. you're feeding into our cynicism and bitterness! when you complain about marriage what we hear is "i have what you want, but i'm ungrateful for it." start telling me how much you love your husband or wife, how much fun it is to do dishes together, how you can't wait to get home and drink wine with each other. it doesn't make me feel bad about my state of singleness, it makes me happy that you are some of the few proud married people left in the world! we know marriage is hard. if it was easy there wouldn't be a 60% divorce rate. running a marathon is hard, but people always talk about how much it was worth it. except you aren't getting a medal at the end of this race, you're getting each other. your commitment to marriage speaks volumes to society and it is certainly worth it. God is showing you more of Himself through marriage. it was designed to point back to Him. now that's something worth talking about so hop to it!

i think i'm mostly writing this blog to myself. on the count of first degree marriage cynicism i find myself guilty as charged. i hereby sentence myself to positivity and encouragement, both to be served concurrently. so yes, i'm still checking facebook. i'm still going to like all of your engagement photos and cry at your wedding. and i promise from now on to be marriage's biggest fan. but not in a creepy "i have a secret wedding board on pinterest" kind of way. in a regular, Godly, supportive way.

Falling In Love: An Urban Affair

This is actually impossible. Fitting this Urban YL experience into a blog post would actually be ridiculous. The problem is: I feel the pressure to fit it all right here. You (whoever you are) probably don’t need to know the details of it... but at this moment I really want you to. I want to write in a way where you can know the awesome stories of the people I’ve gotten to meet. I want to tell you about the really hard stuff that we call “incidents” because I don’t want them to be called “incidents” anymore. I want to introduce you to leaders who literally rock my world every time I hear them talk about their love for kids. I want to explain this in a way where you will understand why trying to explain it is such a mountain.

​When I was placed as an Urban leader I was upset. I knew that my parents were mad, I knew that I was going to feel distant from other leaders in my area, and I knew it was going to be harder than I wanted. It took a full year of leading and listening to leaders from other schools talk about their ministries to realize that everyone feels that way. Urban may look different, but I’ve learned that each school and each “type” of kid carries weight that others don’t. The cliche phrase: “Kids are kids are kids...” has never held as much truth to me as it does now.

​Leading cross-culturally is truly a gift. (Read Acts 8:26-36 for a picture of the Holy Spirit calling people to this.) Daily I get to learn things that I’ve never known. I seriously have felt so honored to be accepted by people that I am nothing like. It has been so humbling to realize that my highschool friends have never been attracted to Jessie.

​It was obviously God who offered them some kind of peace about getting in the car with this weird white girl to go to sonic. It was obviously God that filled the awkward silence when I would ask them what their favorite subject at school was and they would look at me like I was a lunatic. It was obviously God who gave me words (and often times silence) when they would tell me stories about their parents being on the run from the police or their utilities getting shut off each month like clock-work. It’s been God each year as we prepare for camp who has provided support from unlikely places. It’s been God who shows up each time there is a fight at club and protects kids and leaders from being hurt.

As I stood at club 2 nights ago giving my last talk at our last club of the year and at my last
club at AE, God showed up like always. I was nervous that I would be a mess up there trying
to give a final message in this room that holds so many memories. I started to read from the
book, “Oh The Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Suess and the tears began. I quickly tried to pull it
together, only to begin crying again as soon as I got to the scripture about the Risen Jesus in
Luke 24. I just kept looking into the eyes of these kids and thinking “I haven’t said enough.
There is so much more they need, father. There is so much more they want. I haven’t done
enough. There is so much more to be done here. I can’t walk away from this. They have had
enough people walk away. How will they know that they are loved? How will they know that they are unique and amazing unless I tell them all of that now?”

Thankfully, I didn’t begin to rant (even though it took all of my self control). The Lord had
mercy on me and caught my tears and somehow the talk ended. Somehow I finished and
began to pray. Somehow I even managed to accept hugs and clean up after club without
tears. I drove home 4 of my close friends and dropped them at their apartments. I began
driving to my house and wasn’t budging. I honestly still haven’t felt the pangs from that night-
and I’m not sure if I will until I see a tweet next fall about #AEYL having ice cream olympics or
until I begin having club at a new school in a new place.

As I drove home, my friend Emily called and gave me this truth: she said something like,
“Jessie, I wonder if they have ever been cried for. I wonder if they’ve ever gotten to see
someone cry for them out of how loved they are. I wonder if they have known that love.”

My fear that my tears had been distracting vanished. My trust that God would show them his
love and meet them there was restored. My doubts in God’s ability to reach them with or
without me were crushed. I would love to list these girls and guys by name. I would love to tell their stories as I know them, but something about that doesn’t seem right. I also would love to tell the smaller stories of my encounters with them... but I don’t think that seems right either. Instead I think I’ll stop there.

Anytime I write about something I love, I must leave it unfinished. Just know that I have
completely fallen in love over the past 3 years. I’ve fallen in love with this team. I’ve fallen in
love with the school. I’ve fallen in love with 14 senior girls and 7 junior girls who I may not be
able to keep up with once I move away. I have fallen in love with the houses and the roads
that I’ve driven too many times to count. I’ve fallen in love with being heartbroken over the
stories that live in those houses and on that road. I have a feeling that’s what God was hoping
for. I think he sorta loves when we fall in love with being heartbroken because I think it
translates into us falling more in love with Him.


-Jessie Hoaglin is on student staff in Knoxville, TN. She is team leader at Austin East, a high school with a strong urban population. Jessie will be on staff in the Memphis East area in the fall.

You Were Made For This

"I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast! And when I run I feel his pleasure.” -Eric Liddell

The other day I was sitting in a room full of Young Life leaders and we were praying over Quest placements. As we were praying suddenly this quote popped into my mind and I couldn't let go of it. I began to pray that the new leaders would feel His pleasure over the next few years as they enter into ministry. And it got me thinking about our purpose and His pleasure.

Each one of us was undoubtedly made for a purpose. We are fearfully and wonderfully made in His image, each of us uniquely woven together for something. I believe that when we fill in Eric Liddell's sentence we can begin to piece together what that something is. "I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me RELATIONAL! And when I spend time with people I feel his pleasure" Or, "but he also made me FUNNY! And when I make people laugh I feel his pleasure" Or maybe, "but he also made me SMART! And when I learn I feel his pleasure". There are plenty of ways we can uniquely fill in the blanks. There is simply something out there that you were made to do. If you're an excellent photographer and you find joy in taking pictures, then you were given a unique gift. GO DO IT. If you feel his pleasure when you run, then run! If the way the words fall on a page make you giddy, then write things!

God made us to do things. Something deep within us cries out when we're in the midst of that moment. It's incredibly spiritual. Hopefully you know what I'm talking about. It's that moment when you think you might burst because there is a little voice inside of you that says "yes, this is what we were made for". Maybe it gives you chills, maybe it makes you smile. It's that moment when you think you might catch fire and spontaneously combust. That is His pleasure in you being what you were made to be. I think there is a moment when we stand on the edge of what we were made to do and we are terrified. It's not easy looking at all we should be. It's scary and it will be hard. But we have those moments when we know deep inside that He knit us together for this moment, for this talent, for this reason. Maybe it's hanging out with high school kids. When I stood on the edge of looking at Young Life staff I was terrified. But I filled in the blanks. I remembered the moments. "but he also made me for this! And when I do Young Life I feel his pleasure". Maybe that's your sentence too. Maybe it's something else. But I pray that at some point in this ministry you have felt His pleasure. Surely He takes delight when we take delight in His will.

It is hard. It is scary. But you truly were made for this.

Identity

"He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on Him. And there came a voice from heaven: This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him! [...] Then the tempter approached Him and said, 'If You are the Son of God...'" Matthew 3:16-17, 4:3

Who am I? What are we doing here? Am I even doing this right? I think these are the questions that swirl around in our heads when we finally take a moment to be still. That moment when your head is on the pillow but you're just laying there. All the questions you've pushed to the back of your mind start to resurface. It's like the pillow is pushing them up as they rise to the surface and can no longer be ignored.

Lately I've been in that Matthew passage because we're in a season of Lent and talking about the desert. But what I got out of it, more so than the powerful refining process of the desert, was the subject of identity. I think both God and Satan are very intentional in their words and their timing. God affirms His Son and announces His identity to the world in that moment. Not only does He affirm this identity, but He reminds Jesus that He takes delight in Him. This is a pivotal moment not only in the messianic narrative, but in our own narratives as well.

And Satan has 40 days to craft a plan. It is no coincidence that the first thing Satan does is question Jesus' identity. "If you really are the Son of God..." It is a direct assault on everything The Lord has so purposefully affirmed. These are the questions that arise when we start to doubt what we've heard only 40 days before. Did God really say that? Am I good enough? What if I made the wrong decision? And thus the foundation of our confidence in the One who affirmed us begins to crumble. It is not the first time Satan has pulled this stunt. We've seen the first time he targets confidence. In the garden God says not to eat the tree and Satan swoops in right behind Him to say "Did God really say that?" Thus we see the fall of man. Identity is questioned and Eve responds with her interpretation of God's command. Jesus withstands the assault on His identity by being confident in the Word.

You have been called to a specific purpose and The Lord has affirmed that in you. You are being affirmed same way that Jesus was in His ministry. Maybe ministry looks like hanging out with high school kids in the lunch room. Maybe its your high school soccer team. Maybe its loving on leaders or organizing camp trips. No matter what, rest assured that your identity is in Christ. He has called you and affirmed you in ministry that glorifies Him. Listen to His voice as He whispers these things to you. Ingrain the Word on your heart to stand strong against Satan's identity attack. You really are the child of God. There are no if's about it.

An Unconventional God

There's always that one kid. You know the one. The one that makes the trips to awkward lunches and getting stood up worth it all. The kid who reminds you why you do this, why you take the time and why God put the beat in your heart that whispers "tell the kids about Me". I've got that kid and I would like to tell you a little story if you'll be gracious enough to stick with me.

I only knew two kids at the high school I led at that first day. They had come to lacrosse practice the semester before when I volunteer coached and I remember thinking "I'm gonna be friends with those girls." I would talk to them at lunches and one of the girls just seemed so sad. I would leave the school a little down because this girl Karley didn't have a twinkle in her eye. Later in the semester I got the privilege of taking Karley and her friends to Sharptop Cover for fall camp. It was awesome and I knew I loved those girls. There was still something about Karley. Turns out her friend told me later that she didn't know Jesus but was interested in and curious. Curious was an understatement. Taking her home from club was my new mission, and we would sit in the driveway for hours Bible in hand. She fired questions left and right about the bigger mysteries in the world, boys, Jesus, and the whole nine yards. My Young Life team watched me cry at team meetings and I would pray so hard that she could meet Jesus. I had to get this girl to camp. Surely a week at the feet of her Savior would be the answer to these million questions. But how were we going to get the money?

When I left for Christmas break my life was relatively normal. I went home to celebrate the holidays and suddenly, out of the blue, my life was turned upside down. My dad had a seizure. I cried and pleaded with a God I presumed had shut the door in my face. My prayers fell down empty handed and on December 23rd heaven, for me, went silent. He just died and I was furious. This wasn't in the plan. How could such a mighty God refuse my cries for help?

But that's not the end of the story. It never is. Instead of sending flowers we had people donate to my Young Life area. Turns out a nice little fund piled up and I got word that I could use that money to take my girls to camp. Karley was going to Frontier Ranch with her friends to see all the glory that God could put on display for a week. It truly was the best week of our lives. Long story short Karley met her Savior on the side of that big beautiful mountain. We went on a walk and all I said was "are you in?" and she nodded her head and said "all those questions don't matter anymore."

Karley loves Jesus now and I have seen the Gospel on display. You see, we serve an unconventional God. It wasn't that my prayers fell on deaf ears; it that they had already been answered. The nights spent begging for Karley to meet Christ were in the works December 23rd. Jesus died so that we could spend forever with Him. My dad died and now Karley gets a forever too. God is unconventional enough and big enough to use whatever it takes to get our high school friends to meet Him. Don't count Him out.

It reminds me of my favorite C.S. Lewis quote: "Safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King I tell you"

Stepping Towards Jesus

"For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said: You will be delivered by returning and resting; your strength will lie in quiet confidence...Therefore the Lord is waiting to show you mercy, and is rising up to show you compassion, for the Lord is a just God. All who wait patiently for Him are happy" Isaiah 30:15, 18

 

I'm a little nervous to be writing the very first Total YL Move blog post. But everything starts somewhere I suppose. Before break our team and really our whole area was dwelling on this passage from Isaiah. It's a sneaky little passage that sticks with you just the way it should. Young Life across the country will swing into full gear soon as a much anticipated semester of club, campaigners, and events hangs just around the corner. It's easy to get swept up into the excitement and I can still hear the phrase "new year, new you" clamouring around in my head. Time to do things bigger and better (Young Life reference intended). But according to Jesus, that is not the case.

 

Our entire deliverance hinges upon returning and resting. I'm sorry what? You want me to rest? There are clubs to plan Lord! There is coffee to be consumed, journals to be written, and enos to be slung. But just in line with the nature of the God of the univese, he does things contrary to popular belief. He wants us to rest in him, to be still and just know that he is God. He's waiting on us and building up all this compassion that he is ready to pour out on us but it is contingent upon our rest.

 

So hopefully you got some rest this break. Maybe you hung around in your pajamas until unreasonable  hours. Maybe you caught up on some reading, had a few good laughs with some friends. And hopefully you experienced true rest, rest in the Lord. Going into another semester let's hold onto that rest despite the craziness that ensues. May we return to him over and over again to experience deliverance and salvation in the midst of our busy lives. Let's not set our sights so far forward that we forget to turn back to our First Love. According to Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, sometimes the best thing you can do is "turn around and take a step forward".

 

He makes our pullovers, so maybe this guy is onto something. Maybe its time to turn around and take a step towards returning to Jesus.