Listen, the most important thing is helping my students know Jesus, but I don’t think I need to jeopardize their health to do it.
In our youth ministry, we’ve already gone caffeine-free. The free soda is gone and so are the vending machines. That’s because it was the very definition of foolishness to try to get a group of sugar-high, caffeine-filled 13-year-olds to sit still for long enough to experience something meaningful.
We’ve dialed back on sugar for the same reasons (and because we were tired of finding Skittles everywhere).
Maybe the next thing we need to address is the pigging out that we enable—and the example that I’ve become to my students. Because it’s true. I only eat like a glutton at youth group.
But my students don’t know that. All they know is that I seem to eat an irresponsible amount of food every time they see me eat.
And if my students decide they want to be like me, that’s not a habit I want them to emulate.
How about you? Are you only a glutton at church stuff? Or have you succeeded at responsible eating when surrounded by mountains of free food?
