Opening up

So most of the 17 year-olds have received their posting results and are more or less settled in their schools (at least for the JC batch; poly starts in April I hear?). With the exception of Bryan who got into AC (his first choice), most of the others have more or less accepted their current posting, even though some may have tried to appeal to other schools earlier on.

My sister's batch of youths are now in different educational institutions, and this could be good for the Ministry - well in a way. (see later paragraphs for the continuation!) The previous batch was, and still is dominated by a single junior college. Their spirit of unity and togetherness can certainly be commended, if not even admired and emulated. But sometimes, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Naturally, they'd spend more time as a group, both in school as well as in KPC and stuff like that. In fact, some of them may spend so much time with the particular group that they drift away from the rest of the youths and in the process, become even more dependent on their current KPC-schoolmates. Hence a "vicious cycle" can be is set up, and cliques are hence formed, if one is not too careful with how they proportion their time between the different groups of friends and priorities.

Cliques are fine by themselves, but when they become exclusive, that's where the problems develops. Even though certain groups may claim to be open and non-exclusive... Come on, we're all human. Birds of a feather flock together. Sometimes we may unintentionally sideline or exclude others through our conversations, and "closeness" that we may share within the group (i.e. through doing things together etc) Sure, everyone likes to belong to a particular group where you can be close to and share everything with the people involved. There is nothing wrong with that! In fact, having a group of Christian friends to be accountable to is imperative to grow in faith. But we have to learn to open up to others as well. Are we willing to take in those who don't seem to have any particular group to "belong" to? Or do we ignore them because we think they're "weird" and not up to our standards? Believe me when I say I know how it feels, because I have been guilty of it too! In the past when a few of us were from the same secondary school, we did start talking a bit about common school activities and may have sidelined others as well. It's not wrong to discuss about what happened during the sports day or school funfair, but the main takeaway here is to be sensitive to the people around us - to the people who may not have had the opportunity of enjoying the same experience.

I can almost draw a parallel to the tower of Babel, where humanity was once speaking a common tongue, but God confused their languages in order to force them to scatter to repopulate the Earth as He had commanded them to. Of course, this situation regarding school postings exists under vastly different circumstances. I'm not saying that this majority group's unting for the wrong reasons to try to usurp God or anything. Don't get me wrong please! But I guess God has His reasons for placing the current 17-year olds in the positions they are today. The message seems rather clear - To bring one, win one, disciple one, from schools all over the island. In that way, they'd be better able to reach out to young people from diversified walks of life more effectively, rather than drawing friends and youths from a single school.

Then again, much depends on each and every one of us to be an effective witnesses to non-believers and be ready to newcomers feel welcomed to the ministry. After all, "clicks" can still exist, just as they have existed throughout the history of KPC, no matter what schools we come from. Ironically, our greatest asset can also become our greatest weakness - we have become so close and comfortable with our current circle of friends that we may not see the need to make new ones. Are we ready to open up our "close" circle of friends to outsiders? More specifically, are we ready to sacrifice time with our friends, to go out of our way to sit with them during youth/main service/supper, to get to know them better over lunch and even following up with them on weekdays? It is certainly not easy, especially due to the fact that a whole bunch of us practically grew up together and stick like glue now. Furthermore, we only get to see each other once or twice a week and that precious window period is usually used to catch up with our dear friends and stuff. Tough tough. What we are currently experiencing in the Youth Ministry is but a shadow of the problem that the adults and main body of believers face. I may be opening a can of worms here, but how our youths respond may reflect on how some of our parents behave towards newcomers! But I shan't elaborate on this part. For now at least.

Anyway, the fact remains - if we really wanna grow, if we really wanna put our faith and God's Word in action, we really have to pray for guidance, wisdom and perseverance, and to make the effort to open up. Are we ready to make that commitment to serve as ushers, worship team members, group leaders, directors, event planners, station I/Cs, and other roles to make fellowship/evangelistic/discipleship sessions that reach out to newcomers possible? Are we ready to give our best to God? It can certainly be difficult, given some of our personalities and the plethora of outside commitments that our youths are obligated to these days. Just how do we strike that delicate balance? I guess that's one of the main challenges/struggles that I face - that the ministry faces today.

My opinion here remains controversial at best. But I do hope this honest feedback would be of help to those who do come across it and bother to read it all the way to this point. Phew. Haha. Okay man gotta go.