Countdown to Tübingen

grown ups are kids with more expensive toys.

When I think about all the writing I have done for blog posts and newsletters, I believe too many of them start off with a thought or a clever play on words regarding the current weather conditions. Nevertheless, in just a few seconds, I will be using the weather as a starting point for making a point totally irrelevant to weather once more. Are you ready?

Nice weather we’re having.

Fifty-one degrees and rainy without a glimpse of the sun all day. It doesn’t get any better than this… in England. Ha, ha. We tease England.

As summer goes into its early death throes, it’s time to look at the climate we are setting here at Unterwegs. It’s kind of hard to know how to feel as a campus minister at this point in building a ministry… for a while now, we’ve been playing the roles of social planners, organizing parties, going out with students, hosting dinners, that kind of thing. At the same time, we’re trying to move in a deeper direction with students… talk about meaningful relationships, forgiveness, convincing them of their incredible worth.

One of the things we talked about in raising support was the global youth culture. We watch the same movies (and close our eyes during the same scary scenes), listen to the same music (well, Germans apply their techno a little more liberally), wear the same jeans (especially when it costs so much to do laundry :P). But one thing we didn’t realize while we were discussing the global culture is just how much the struggles of the global youth are the same wherever the culture goes. Kids here struggle with looks, acceptance, finding a boyfriend/girlfriend, alcohol, drugs… it’s just in German.

And there are fewer people ready for them with love and support. There are lots of churches over here, lots of campus ministries that are ready and waiting to tell people about Jesus, but there are very few who are willing to be Jesus to people. That’s where we come in.

In the last couple of weeks, as we’ve started to make the transition from party people to ministers, it’s been a mix of feelings – surprise at how much heartbreak there can be, confusion at how people react to hurt and pain, but – more than anything – shocked at how similar it all is to what we know from back in the States.