There will be times in your “youth family” when you will have to deal with emotional issues such as  accidents, death, illness, divorce or any of the things that happen in life when you ask the question, “Where were You, God?” 

When these things happen the first thing you need to do for the student closest to and most hurt by the situation is to find one of your strongest leaders of the same sex and ask them to take a special interest in this student.  Say to them, “you own this student.”  Ask your leader to call the student, look for them at the youth service and offer to sit with them even if they act cool.  Assure your leader not to take the coolness as rejection.  This coolness is often their way of saying, “My God, I’ve watched my brother die… (or whatever)” and that’s a big deal.  Let that leader feel like that individual is their mission in life.  Because the only thing that wins when things like this happen is time, and somebody needs to pay enough quiet dues without pushing that then the hurt student begins to feel sincerely connected with.

You can also, as the leader, be a voice from the platform to help your students deal with these difficult situations.  In my youth ministry right now I’ve got 4 or 5 of these highly sensitive situations just like this playing out.  Recently we did a series called “Code Blue” that asked the questions like…”How do you deal with pain when you’re saying, God, I don’t get it…why didn’t You stop that from happening?” or “Why did You let that happen?” 

You can find my message at http://www.youthleaderscoach.com/playbook/.  It’s called “Even If…”