How Young Life staff are taking The Good Way and you can, too.
“We’ve grown old, but our Father is younger than we. He has the eternal appetite of infancy,” wrote GK Chesterton, English apologist from the early 1900s in his book Orthodoxy.
“Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” said that same Father through his Son, recorded in Matthew 18:3.
What is it that causes us to age in such a way that precludes us from enjoying the playful, regenerative presence of God in each moment? Though I’ve never framed the question with these exact words before, this is in fact the question we’re seeking to answer in The Good Way.
In 2018, Young Life President Newt Crenshaw commissioned the creation of The Good Way, a three-retreat cohort designed to refresh, restore, and recreate Young Life staff, even as they pour themselves out for the sake of young people in the name of Jesus. Borrowing from Jeremiah 6:16, staff are invited to “Stand at the crossroads and look, ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way lies and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”
The “rest” God offers through Jeremiah is the same rest Jesus offered us in Matthew 11:28-29: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
These words from Jesus are familiar to many of us, but the preface to this invitation might have escaped our attention. Before Jesus invited us to come and rest, he called us again to grow young. “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do” (Matthew 11:25-26).
Jesus invites us into a rest that’s pregnant with the playful, regenerative presence of God who makes all things (including things that are people) new. In The Good Way, we stand at the crossroads together and look for the paths that will help us become like little children so we might enjoy with abandon the love of our Father in the company of Jesus through the help of the Spirit and find deep rest for our weary, rapidly-aging souls.
Anyone can take advantage of The Good Way resources. Come explore what can give you rest!
Apparently these paths are well-worn and good, and we must walk them in order to grow young. In The Good Way we come alongside saints of old, including Elijah, Moses, and many others, and seek to follow in their footsteps. We engage in practices that cultivate silence and solitude in the center of our souls so we might hear the still, small voice of God like Elijah. We engage in practices that invite us to take off our shoes and warm ourselves in God’s presence, like Moses, engaging in face-to-face, friend-to-friend conversations with him that heal us, transform us, and make us whole.
We do this together in a safe circle of friends that seek to become available to God and available to one another; vulnerable with God and vulnerable with one another (wisdom we’ve learned from old saints of Celtic roots).
We let St. Benedict teach us about the root of hospitality: recognizing the image of God in each person. We let St. Ignatius teach us about engaging our imaginations in prayer and reflecting upon our day, seeking moments of God’s nearness and moments when we experienced him as distant. What can we learn from what we notice?
We learn from wise women from the past like Jeanne Guyon; Teresa of Avila; Moses’ mother and sister; Mary of Magdala; and Mary the mother of Jesus. We learn also from wise women who are still among us, like Ruth Haley Barton, Tish Harrison Warren, and others.
We listen and learn, play and pray, rest and reflect, in extended times of solitude and silence and in cherished times of conversation with friends we call “listening groups.” And we do it all under the banner of words from Jesus in John 10:27. “My sheep listen to my voice,” he said. “I know them, and they follow me.”
The first retreat sits beneath the words, “My sheep listen to my voice.”
The second retreat beneath, “I know them.”
In the final retreat we explore how following Jesus is the organic by-product of listening deeply to his voice and being deeply and fully known through surrender and consent.
There are few dry eyes when it comes time to say goodbye at our final gathering. Our team is the worst! We truly become young again. We cry like babies as we wave goodbye to our friends who feel like family; friends we’ve prayed for whole-heartedly for the duration; friends whom God has used to form us, as much or more than God has used us to form them.
We’ve said goodbye now to 17 cohorts of Young Life staff, including one cohort designed specifically for the Mission Lead Team (Newt and his direct reports); one for the similar leadership team for Young Life in Canada; and two cohorts that included 10-each of our friends from Young Life in Africa. God-willing, next year we’ll launch The Good Way on-continent in Africa and also in Europe.
We cannot keep up with the demand, and our bodies are certainly aging, but inwardly we are being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16). Our team is grateful, humbled and honored to labor mightily with pains that feel like childbirth until Christ is formed in each of us (Galatians 4:19). Christ who is forever young.
If you’re on Young Life staff and would like to learn more about Young Life’s The Good Way, please visit https://thegoodway.younglife.org/.
By Donna Hatasaki, Young Life’s senior director of spiritual formation
