Ministry can be busy. I think we all know this. When it comes to meetings and when it comes to our weeks we have an agenda that we go by. There are people to meet with about certain things. There are meetings that have agendas about programming, planning events, people to touch base with, things to reserve. There are one-on-one meetings with a purpose because they need help or they are helping us. Our week is jam-packed with agendas. This is not a bad thing. Stuff needs to get done, ministry needs to happen people are going to need things and talk to us.

I feel sometimes we lose the simple pleasure of meeting with students with no agenda. I got reminded of this the other night. A group of students I got to hang out with for a good amount of time up at our winter retreat invited me to come to dinner with them. I did. We went to Chick-fil-a and it was delicious. It was myself and 7 other students. There was no agenda. We literally were just there eating and hanging out. We talked about movies, the classes they were in, favorite TV shows and what their parents do that bug them. No agenda. No motives. Just a pure hang out and quality time laughing and just being together. There was another night were I hung out with two guys in my small group for 2 hours at Starbucks just hanging and talking life. Again, no agenda. Just being with.

It was refreshing.

We as youth workers and ministers get caught up in the hustle and bustle of meetings and people needing things from us and the fact that we need some things from people in order to make our ministry and our church run. There has to be an agenda otherwise nothing gets done.

I think sometimes we need to make in our agenda a “no agenda time” just to be with students.

No plans. No motives. No agenda. Let’s not get caught up in the craziness of running a ministry and miss out on some of the greatest ministry moments we can have with students… simply just being with them, laughing with them, talking with them about nothing.

When they feel comfortable enough to just hang with you when the “big stuff” in their life goes down you will be the first one they come to and you can speak God’s truth into their lives during that time, furthering your relationship with them and helping them further their relationship with God.