Mission: A Journey of Patience, Persistence, and Faith
by Kenny Wilson
Sometimes mission is hard isn’t it? We slog away day after day, week after week and sometimes even year upon year and still, despite fervent prayers for inspiration and assistance it’s as if the heavens were uninterested and that despite the fact that we are commanded to ‘go’ and make disciples of all nations! ‘Come on Lord! Give us a break!’
Ever felt that way? I know I have, and not just on one occasion either. When I first began to pioneer Relational Youth Work I had just moved to Oxford, believing that God wanted us, my wife Julie and I, to move there. The move itself was full of God’s preparation and care and we were left in no doubt that this was exactly where God wanted us to move to.
And yet, a full school year after our move, having been cautiously welcomed by our local High school’s headteacher, I knew that our first year had been a failure. One year on, not a single pupil in that school, not one, had even acknowledged my existence, had said ‘Hi’ to me or even asked for or used my name. I was all set to write to my Team Supporters, who sponsored me in youth ministry, and ask them if I should quit. Taking my courage in my hands I did just that…and not a single person agreed. They all said ‘Hang in there! We believe in you!” So we did.
Imagine my surprise when, on dragging my feet up the hill to the school campus at the start of year two, a young man said ‘Hi Kenny. Nice to see you back again!” You could have knocked me over with a feather! And that was it…I was IN!!! Was year two completely different to year one? Not really. It was still a struggle to earn the right to be there but in theory at least I knew that ‘Earning the Right’ to be in a young person’s life’ took time. But it was a beginning.
Bringing you up to date, a lot of years and adventures and experience have come and gone, and I am currently living on a small island off the west coast of Scotland. My role these days is to be ‘a facilitator of youth work’, encouraging and enabling Christian people who want to reach out to young people, to do so. My nearest High School is a ferry ride to the mainland and then a further 30 minute car journey away from my island home. The team of volunteers that has been built in that town is drawn from across the local denominations, but we were at a crossroads. We’d been running a few regular events like youth clubs or weekend events, with limited success but had no access to our local high school as the door had been firmly shut for Christian work for many, many years. But that hadn’t stopped us hankering after such an opening. Based on my previous experience of doing Relational Youth Work I knew that ‘Earning the Right’ was still a process, not an event, but we just couldn’t find a way to engage with the young people effectively. We’d prayed and prayed and prayed for an opening. I’d prayed and prayed and prayed for a breakthrough! In the schools in ‘my’ huge rural area that were open to Christian input, I didn’t have any volunteers. In the town where I had the volunteers, the school was closed for business and the volunteer team were, rightly, becoming discouraged.
And then, two years ago now, at the start of the new school year, I got a phone call asking me to come up the high school to meet the new, but temporary, headteacher. An hour after our meeting I was jumping for joy. This new headteacher had already had experience of relational youth work in two of his previous schools and was very enthusiastic about having such a team in his ‘new, but temporary’ place of work. The team were thrilled but they were also apprehensive as they didn’t have much experience either of youth work in a high school or of Relational Youth Work in a school context. But two years on, the next headteacher, who’d inherited our team of volunteers when she got her new job, is very positive about having us on the premises. BUT…for all the fact that we know that we are appreciated, we are still awaiting breakthroughs into young people’s lives, bringing the team and the young people into friendships where we are able to share our lives with one another. Having had to close down our Friday night youth club, over Covid and post-Covid times, we are ready to try again in the hope that we will be able to connect more strongly with these young people. Will it work? Watch this space!
As I am currently re-reading the Book of Acts I do know this for sure…Mission is seldom easy!
