#discipleshipFTW

Yesterday I got to go to lunch with this girl:

who is headed to Chile in about a month to finish her Junior year  of college.

She kept introducing me as her "small group leader from middle school" which is just weird to me because that was TEN YEARS AGO, KELLY!  You can just call me your "friend from back home" if you want.  I try to meet/eat with KBartz at least once a semester.  As a student at George Washington University, which is located in the heart of DC, she's a pretty busy girl (read: super busy, all of the time) so I consider myself lucky that she makes time for me.

It's true that I met Kelly about ten years ago when she was a 6th grader, and I was the wise old age of 15.  (there's a great story about how my girls discovered that I was 15, and how that was so old to them that I was "practically a grandma" which is how the nickname "gma vicks" came about.)  When I committed to being a "small group leader" it wasn't because I had these great intentions of becoming good friends with the girls later on in life, or because I was trying to "further His kingdom."  Really, it was that I had a lot of fun with my leaders when I was in middle school, I liked the staff I would be working with, and my friends were doing it.  (why else does a high school sophomore do anything?)  Over the course of the next three years, I did my best to disciple "my girls" and show them that following Jesus was not only worthwhile, but fun and full of adventures.  Turns out that despite my best attempt to teach them all about reading the Bible, dealing with boys and treating each other well, the best forms of discipleship come from steam rolling at 7am, watching their soccer/basketball/lacrosse games and late night conversations during the night games they didn't really want to play.  I knew that I wasn't a Biblical scholar, that being only four years older than them didn't really make me all the more "wiser" and it was hard to give them relationship advice when I hadn't ever been in one.  During those three years, I ultimately had one goal- make sure they knew they were loved.

I'd made that my goal because that was what made a difference in my life at that age.  I couldn't tell you a single "lesson" we learned during my own middle school years- probably because we were too rambunctious to actually listen- but I could tell that the people who were there each Monday/Sunday night loved me and they said Jesus loved me too.  Not so coincidentally, the devotional I've been reading lately recently touched on the difference between influence and love.  It's true that as I got to know my girls, I wanted desperately to have been an influence on them- to make a difference in their lives.  Any adult student ministry volunteer will tell you that's why they do what they do.  As the years have passed, I've been able to see that I did make an influence, at least a small one on some of them.  I'd like to take credit it for it- to claim that I'd been planning it all along, but my 15 year old self could hardly identify influence, let alone be intentional about being one.  I got lucky because "influence is always the fruit of relationship."  

I've grown up with these girls.  A few years ahead of them, maybe, but they've taught me more than I've ever taught them.  Loving them taught me more about how Jesus loves me than practically anything else.  Not all of them "turned out great" and I don't still have a relationship with all of them.  Over the years, I've watched plenty of "my girls" go on to make destructive decisions, and it breaks my heart every single time.  There was a time when I questioned if I was making any difference at all- something I'm sure Jesus says about me all of the time.  At the end of the day I can rest assured knowing that I did my best to love them, and continue to as the years roll on.  If I've learned one thing about working with adolescents in the church, it's that they don't need another person judging them for the decisions they make- they need someone to love them for who they are- mistakes and all- and to give them a hug when life seems to be falling apart completely.  It's also usually when you're not trying to be an influence that you become most influential.

It is a joy and a blessing to get to sit down with them periodically and get a glimpse of their growing-up lives.  I love hearing all about the crazy things Kelly is doing- from spending last summer in Serbia, to deciding last minute to study abroad in Chile- she's a strong, driven, intelligent woman of God who impresses the heck out of me every time we get together.  Super busy, yes, but somehow she still manages to meet with the freshman girls on her cross-country team, show recruits around campus and help her friends plan their weddings. So while she might still introduce me as her "small group leader from middle school" which implies that I'm the one doing the discipling, I consider myself lucky and blessed to get to be a part of her life.

Not to say that I wouldn't still steamroll her the second I got the chance.