Trouble-making is what discipleship looks like. Our role is not to create nice, compliant American citizens ready to get a good job and have 2.4 kids. Our job is to introduce young people to the life-ruining Jesus who causes nothing but trouble.
Trouble is the youth worker's middle name.
Remember, all they can do is fire you. I thought the wrong kind of kid was the right kind of kid. I thought we were all riff raff. A church where the ethnic mix was changing hired a young woman to work with gang members, who after a few weeks was successful in gathering a few gang members for a Bible study. She actually talked them into coming to the church building for the study.