In many ways, the senior high youth group in the 60’s at Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles was like any other. We had a dedicated Sunday School class, a Sunday evening Christian Endeavor, monthly Friday night socials, summer camps, even a high school choir called His People.
But the thing that made our youth group stand out was our youth pastor, Jim Klubnik, and his commitment to give us actual ministry experience on the mission field.
Of course, youth groups going on missions trips are common today. But in those days, it was unheard of.
But I don’t know of any church, then or since, that did what Jim did with us: he split us high schoolers into teams of four (hey, I’ve heard of that somewhere else), trained the team how to hold Vacation Bible Schools, and dropped each team off for a week or two in small towns to stay in a sponsor’s home and put on our own VBS….all alone!
Throughout my years in COD’s youth group, Jim did this with us again and again in places like rural California, Northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, and even Baja, Mexico (with translators).
There we were, teams of four high school kids staying in our sponsor’s homes, hundreds of miles away from our own homes, going door to door inviting kids to our VBS, and then putting the VBS on. We even held a teen night for the town teenagers and shared our testimonies.
Pretty radical stuff for teenagers.
But out of that youth group over a dozen of us kids became pastors and missionaries.
There’s nothing like actual ministry – and the love of a youth pastor – to create in Christian kids a hunger to minister for the rest of their lives.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org and is dedicated to the late Jim Klubnik and his beautiful wife, Peggi Klubnik.
