If you feed them they will come. That applies to teens and actual food as well as spiritual food. Check out this youth minister’s thoughts on feeding teenagers with God’s Word.
My three daughters love animals. So it was no surprise recently when my oldest daughter asked if we could put up a bird feeder. I agreed to, but I had my doubts. We live in a planned community where they indiscriminately bulldoze the woods to build houses. Unfortunately, not much habitat for birds exists near our house. Nonetheless, I hung a bird feeder outside our kitchen window, filled it with food, and waited.
After about a week, no birds had visited. My daughters still checked every morning to see if any patrons came to our birdseed buffet. And every morning, there were none. I prepared my “time to take the bird feeder down” speech and braced myself for the certain disappointment. Then a funny thing happened.
The first bird to show up was a little brown fellow, a thrasher I believe. He received squeals of laughter from my daughters and no small sense of amazement from me. He dined alone for a couple of mornings, until apparently word got out. Within a few days he had company. Lots of company. So much that we had to hang another feeder. Now we’re a veritable block party for hungry birds, a non-stop sunflower seed feast for finches and flycatchers alike.
Be Nourished
Early one morning, I was having my devotional time. I was sitting at our kitchen table, near the window by the feeders. As usual, several birds were already enjoying an early breakfast. A simple thought struck me: Birds come where there’s food. (Told you it was simple.)
Why do I relate this story to you? After all, you’re busy and probably don’t care about birds or whether or not they eat breakfast outside my window. But I think a useful spiritual metaphor exists, one that can easily serve as a blueprint for how you facilitate ministry with students.
Want to know this profound truth? If you feed them they will come.
I discovered that birds come where there is food. The funny thing is that teenagers will do the same thing.
