So, I'm really starting to think about the youth group that I'm leaving. I am giving up all control and direct influence on them. I have taught my last Wednesday night lesson here (next week we will just "remember" together). I have no idea what is going to happen with the youth program here, and the possibilites scare me to death. Dana and I have invested 4 years of our lives in these kids and are incredibly proud of who they are. The question is "Who will they be?" I'm glad that God's running the show. I'm glad He loves these kids more that I do (as hard as that is for me to believe). I'm glad He has bigger dreams for them than I can come up with. I'm glad he reminds me that my job is just to plant seeds and that His job is the rest (Mark 4:26-29) . I'm glad that while I will be at work somewhere else, God will still be at work in the lives of these kids.
AE
6 comments:
i feel bad that you and dana have to leave a group that you all love so much...
but i guess God wants that, and i'm proud that you and dana picked what you thought was His choice, and not yours. that's awesome!
still praying for you all!
-rachel- :o)
I don't know you or your situation, but my prayers are with you. I have had to leave mission works and churches before. WIth a broken heart, I told a missionary friend, "I'm not done, yet! There's so much I need to finish first." My wise friend replied, "That will always be true. We are never finished. But we still have to move on."
God bless your tents as you continue your journey.
Hey Adam! I knew you had a blog, it just took me along time to find it! I am sooo excited to know that you are going to be our new youth minister!! :D I better get going! See you soon!
tell dana to update! lol :-P
Hey Adam! Well it's getting closer to that time and I can't wait! And whoa! Patrick Mead left you a comment! I love that guy! lol :-P
Well see you in the next few days :o)
Anna
The hardest thing I've had to learn - in service to the church, in the recovering community, or in my daily work - is that there is no "investment" in what we do, except in the hearts and minds of the people we touch. There will be no asterisk on the pictures on the wall saying that I mentored this person, or in the financials saying that I raised these dollars.
The only return I get on my "investment" is when I hear from one of the youth I worked with, and they were inspired by our time together to do new and wondrous things. When I hear from a guy I nursed through multiple relapses and his first full year of sobriety, and hear that he's a nurse in an addiction-recovery unit. When the guy I never thought I'd ever see sober has a new life, a new wife, and a new baby. When the young man I mentored in my former career is now managing a dozen people, and referring to me as one of the positive influences in his early career.
Ministry time, I've found, is kairos time - it's always now. Which is particularly appropriate, since the God we serve describes God's-self as "I AM" - forever in the present. That's why, for me, a "ministry of presence" is one of the most holy callings I know.
There will never be a church like the one you're leaving; there will never be kids like the ones you've spent time with. That is both bad news and good news - because it means that there will be entirely new kids and people and experiences ahead for you. Some will be ghastly; some will make you want to run away, or back, or whatever.
But, as a wise friend tells me time and again, God has not brought either of us this far to drop us on our keister.
I'll leave you with the chorus of an older song by Wayne Watson called A Season in Your Path, which I used when I left my "home congregation" to come to Chicago for school:
Sometimes I think about you -
Some old memories make me cry,
Remembering the good times makes me laugh, yeah -
But all in all, I'm richer for the happy and the sad,
And thankful for a season in your path.
I'd say, "Go with God" - but fortunately, neither one of us gets a vote on that one...
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