The following post was written by Katie Wylie, student ministry marketing strategist
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,
You know Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen,
But do you recall?
The most famous reindeer of all?
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it,
You would even say it glows.
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games
Then one foggy Christmas Eve,
Santa came to say,
“Rudolph with your nose so bright,
Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”
Then all the reindeer loved him,
As they shouted out with glee,
Rudolph the red-nose Reindeer
You’ll go down in history!
Rudolph: Awkward, made fun of, and a loner.
The other reindeer: the in-crowd, capable of ganging up on others, exclusive.
Story sound familiar? That’s because there’s at least one Rudolph in every student ministry. And I bet you can identify at least one group of students who’ve acted like the other reindeer. The Rudolph of your group is the kid no one really wants to include– the kid maybe even you are tempted to ignore. The quiet kid, the shy kid, or maybe the obnoxiously loud kid.
It’s tempting to focus on other students in your ministry– the ones that are engaging or even just plain behaving, but take a lesson from Santa on this one.
Santa looked past the unusuality of Rudolph’s red, shiny nose. He took the most unlikely kid and gave him the best job on the team– shining light into the night sky to guide the sleigh.
Don’t overlook your Rudolph. The Lord might just be preparing to use him or her to shine light into dark places, too.
