When I first asked Sarah to talk to me about the summer internship program at Lake, she expressed concern about how to “sugarcoat” her answers to my questions, saying, “The internship has been an awesome experience but it’s also been an experience, where I’ve learned mostly from failing.” I immediately knew I had asked the right person to discuss the internship.
Sarah Beckon, like me, grew up at Lake. Her parents met here in a Bible study, and so they are heavily steeped in church community. Sarah was shepherded by many volunteers and staff members at Lake as a kid. I nodded my head in recognition as she told me about looking up to her small group leaders, her camp counselors, her Sunday morning volunteers. We both saw the summer interns as rockstars, and aspired to join them when we graduated high school. I don’t think Sarah’s story is unique – what makes it notable is that despite how common her experiences were, they aren’t part of the narrative we believe about working at a church. I found our interview to be cathartic, her experience being taken aback by the realities she found, when she became one of those rockstar summer interns, rhymed with my own.
Sarah is spending her third summer working with our Club45 students, who she also volunteers with throughout the rest of the year. Her first summer, she remembers, she was eager to “go deep” with her small group. She remembered how meaningful it had been for her to have adults pour into her life as a young teenager, but now that she was the adult, she was lost, and felt like her girls – who were happy to talk about their favorite TV shows and which other volunteer they thought Sarah ought to date – were missing out, that she was somehow failing at her job to make them open up to her. She quickly found herself worn out and frustrated – student ministries requires a lot of energy – and had yet to talk soul-to-soul with a student when she arrived at camp her first summer. She remembers breaking down with then elementary coordinator, Carol Kenyon, and crying. She felt like God wasn’t using her, and it was somehow her fault.
It took her that whole first summer to realize that more than that one facet of a relationship, the kids needed a whole relationship with her – one that included laughter and silliness and games. The small group leader Sarah looked up to so much was her leader for seven years – who even now, years later and across the country, remains a part of Sarah’s life. She realized that the commitment her leaders showed, their consistent presence, their intentional persistence, and honest, humble posture had been what invited her into a space she felt safe to both have fun as her authentic self and seek solace and encouragement in her hard times. Though she was eager to dry tears and answer questions, Sarah discovered that “what the kids really get out of the internship is a relationship…they need someone that is there and willing to listen and have fun with them. They need someone that is willing to be committed to embodying a disciple of Christ and what a life following Christ can look like. They don’t want perfection, and they don’t need to have tear-jerking moments all the time to have an incredible summer and to witness God’s goodness in the world.”
At the beginning of the summer, Lead Ministry Pastor Jeff Mattesich always speaks to the interns, warning them that working at a church and working with students will be different from what we expect (or, as Sarah called it, “a slap in the face”) – he knew, from experience, that we were holding expectations for ourselves as leaders that we had developed while we were students looking at our beloved, admired role models. He knew that we would be coming into the experience afraid to fail - that we would put the weight of students’ spiritual health on our shoulders, and he warned us to take it off. He had seen many batches of interns enter the summer bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eager to serve, be reminded of their insufficiency, and he encouraged us to lean into our need for Christ, to lean into the reality that we are not the Worker, but His tools. And he reminded us that every leader at the church, even the pastors, had experienced doubt and failure, and that this community was a safe and loving place to grow in.
The truth of Pastor Jeff’s words was hard to appreciate that first day - Say the wrong thing? Feel useless? No way. I’m gonna be the best leader ever! I’m going to change lives. But Sarah, reflecting after three years of interning and volunteering, says, “I failed a lot my first summer, but I learned so much about my own faith and where my strengths lie in student ministries. It was a summer where I had to look back to realize how much God had used me. Since that summer, I have continued to fail and make mistakes as an intern, but I don’t think I have ever been surrounded by a more encouraging and uplifting group of staff members and parents and students.”
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