I worked at a pet supply store in high school. We had a regular customer come visit us about once a month after buying a certain type of lizard we sold at the store. Every time he came in, he would report on the growth of his pet. He spent over a thousand dollars on terrariums and in a six-month span, his lizard hardly grew. This was a lizard that normally grows beyond two feet long, and yet his was hardly broaching one foot. Conventional wisdom dictates the size of the enclosure is the main limiting factor for growth for many lizards and fish grown in captivity. During one of his visits, our stymied guest was listing his woes when someone with actual competency eavesdropped.
“Have you cleaned his terrarium?” He asked.
“Cleaned it? I keep buying new ones,” our lizard owner explained incredulously.
“Ok,” our guest expert laughed. “And are you giving him new bedding with each new terrarium or are you just shoveling in the old stuff?” A month later, our favorite customer came into show us pictures of how his little science experiment had nearly caught up with “normal.”
Generally speaking, I’ve found that much of what contributes to growth of a pet lizard or fish is similar to what contributes to the growth of a group of people. Is there room to grow? Is the nourishment provided adequate? Is the environment free of toxicity?
With our youth program at North Pointe, we are blessed with a huge facility. We have room to grow beyond our imaginations. The nourishment that sustains the program is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no richer fare in existence. There is no greater fertilizer for growth than the truth of the One who made the world upon which we walk.
That just leaves toxicity. And toxicity is difficult to chase down. We bring our own ugly with us whenever we come in from having been given a hearty helping of it in the wild. Downtown traffic, social media disputes, or even our own lack of self-confidence can all toxify us before we are with others. To that end, we have two rules:
- Respect.
- Be 100% yourself.
Within those two rules, just as “love God and love people,” sums up all of the law and the prophets, all behavioral and cultural correction exist. The youth program is beginning to grow and that is entirely the doing of God, bringing people in close contact with each other. We are blessed with a robust team of adults willing to give up time and a small margin of sanity to help provide a toxicity free environment so that our students may grow.
The experience of the American teen catches up a wide variety of different follies and victories. Some struggle with self-image and others with the need for a greater group of friends. Or even one friend. When they come together on Wednesday evenings, some of them are coming into an environment for the first time that will accept them exactly as they are without precondition or expectation that they change before leaving. Some of them encounter the others and have to learn how to measure out grace for someone who struggles.
It would be impossible to grow a youth program if we tried to build it from all students cut from the same cloth. The only way to grow into the future is to give our students the understanding that their origin is unimportant to the brightness of their destination and that all of them share the same destination. If they, then, all share in the upward call of Christ Jesus the King, that is the only thing they must share in common. It cleans the terrarium of all of its toxicity, feeds them with purest nourishment, and makes the entire world their enclosure, boundless in its space.
When the group grows, as it has the past few weeks, beyond twenty students present in an evening, the excitement for things that are genuinely fun grows beyond any individual complaint that an activity might be undignified. The past two weeks we have played games with glow sticks in the gym. Even students skeptical of big group games have walked out with smiles broad enough to endorse whatever activity was to follow.
It’s exciting to see where this program is headed and thrilling to meet so many fascinating people in this journey. If you’re interested in being one of our terrarium keepers, we have room for adults who love Jesus and can have fun.