It's a funny title but bear with me as I think this gets to something that can cause real heartache among youth and children's workers up and down the country.
Picture the scene - in your small youth group dominated by boys, one girl comes week by week but you know she's not loving being part of it. And then to your utter joy a new family arrives who have a daughter the same age! Problem over, right?
Well then to your utter disbelief they don't seem to get on and even when they both come to youth group, they don't really engage with each other.
Or there are a group of boys who have always been really good friends and love attending the children's groups together. They move into the youth group and you're looking forward to them enjoying it together and deepening their friendships. But when it came to it, they drifted apart and some felt a bit isolated and stopped coming along altogether.
This can be very painful for all involved - painful for their parents as they desperately want their children to have Christian friends at church. Painful for some or all the young people as imagined friendships are not borne out in reality. And most of all (it can sometimes feel like!) for the youth and children's workers whose groups and ministries can be massively impacted and carry the pain of these relationships that feel like they should exist but don't. So how do we respond when people who really should be friends with each other, aren't?
Hold to Jesus' standard
It is painful and it's something I have found so hard over the years but here are a few thoughts. First of all I have to ask myself the question 'am I holding the young people to a standard that I'm not holding myself to?' Just because someone is my age and stage and a Christian doesn't mean that I'm going to be their best mate, and there's a good chance they might feel the same way. And that's ok, right? So surely it is ok for our young people, too. Jesus calls us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ but He doesn't say we have to be best friends with everyone in our church - that's the same for youth and children.
So what do Jesus shaped friendships look like, especially with those we don't naturally get on with? It's a great thing to think through: what do Christian relationships look like for our youth and children? How would Jesus have perfectly treated the other toddlers in Galilee when He was two? (Both those He naturally or didn't naturally get on with!) Or when He was a child or a teenager? It's a huge area where the Bible has lots to say and we need to think carefully to apply it to our youth and children's age and stage. What does it look like for them to encourage one another (1 Thess. 5:11), bear with one another (Col. 3:13), bear one another's burdens (Gal. 6:2) and accept one another (Rom. 15:7)? Not being best friends with people doesn't exclude us from being church family together. In fact when Jesus commands His followers to love one another and says 'by this everyone will know that you are my disciples' - it is much more likely that the world will notice when our young people show this love to those they wouldn't normally be friends with.
Finally, we want to commit these tricky relationships that we find exasperating to the Lord in prayer. I remember despairing about one non-existent friendship I felt really should exist to another leader, and they very gently said to me 'you know it's ok they aren't best friends and we can't make them be?' I needed to hear that. I thought given enough effort from me and my leadership team we could force them to be good friends. We couldn't! But I can commit that non-existent friendship to the Lord. 1 Peter 5:7 tells us that we can 'cast all our anxiety on Him (God!) because He cares for you.' I am surprised how often my anxiety in youth and children's ministry often comes back to the relationships among the different youth and children. I'm glad God cares about this, as well as how demoralising it can make me feel, and I can bring that all to Him.
