Coffee Pot Youth Ministry

I love coffee. I’m a coffee fan to the extent that it doesn’t need to taste good in order for me to consume it. I’m not a discriminatory coffee drinker either. Whether you’re a Starbucks, Dunkin’ or gas station cup of coffee… I will drink you.

Have you seen the Keurig coffee makers? Over the past couple years, Keurig’s popularity has increased. Just put a little K-Cup in the maker and press the size of your cup and BOOM. Gourmet coffee in a matter of seconds. Throughout college, I drank coffee out of a coffee pot and I loved it. It was not until I got married when we received a Keurig coffee maker that I switched over to K-Cups.

If you work with teenagers on a daily basis, there are two very important things that help keep us going—the Holy Spirit and coffee. Mission trips, summer camps, lock-ins or the weekly Thursday morning headache from Wednesday night’s service. Whatever the case may be, coffee can be your friend.

As I consume more and more coffee, I realize that these K-Cups are not fulfilling my desire for caffeine. I need stronger coffee, but I have a problem. There are only one size K-Cups.

I want the strong stuff. I want a coffee pot. I want to put as many scoops of coffee grounds as I want and have multiple cups of coffee throughout the day… not just one cup of gourmet coffee in the morning.

Many teenagers believe going to church once or twice a week satisfies their relationship with God. They put in the “Church K-Cup” and, depending on how well they listened during the sermon, their coffee may affect them for an hour or the rest of the day. At the end of the week, their gourmet cup of “church coffee” has little or no effect on their spiritual life.

In youth ministry, I believe in coffee pot Christianity. I want teenagers to have multiple spiritual cups of coffee throughout the week. Prayer. Bible reading. Devos. Personal worship. Church. Small groups.

And the sermon? Not a little K-Cup message. I’m talking multiple scoops of coffee grounds from the Holy Spirit for a strong brew of theology, practicality and worship. I pray that our teenagers would begin living a lifestyle of coffee pot Christianity radically affecting how they live their lives every day.

What about you? What kind of “coffee” is available in your youth ministry? What can we do to help teenagers encounter God on a daily basis as opposed to once or twice a week?

Josh Waugh graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Samford University in May 2012. He is currently serving at First Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama as the Youth and College Pastor. Recently married to his high school sweetheart, Susie, they live on campus at Samford in Birmingham and are expecting their first child in August. Continue the conversation with Josh on Facebook or Twitter at @joshwaugh1.