Hey! Listen!

Tonight, I write. I don't know why. I only know that my heart literally tells me that I have to. I almost feel that I am struggling inside. Like there is a huge block of emotion or passion that is about to spill out of me. I honestly have no idea what that would look like or what that would be. And I don't want it to pour out as an eruption like a volcano, or the way I would spaz out on my brother, growing up. I want to focus it into something more. Something that I currently don't know I am capable of. Something I can only do because of God.


I think it all stems from the fact that I am always thinking to myself, "I want to change the world." I being me. Change being to make something, something that it isn't. The world being the place where you and me alike spend every minute of our lives. It's kind of a big deal. It's no task that should be taken lightly because if it were, the momentum would always stop short of change.

I think my passion today is to really start ministering to my youth. As most of you who are reading this know, I just got my first job as a Youth Director a few weeks ago. As of right, now my ministry has not sprouted. I work under Pastor Bill and he runs the confirmation program (Definitely one of the most swell confirmation programs that I have seen). But as of right now, that is all I am really doing, other than meeting youth and their respective parents.

I realize that is very early in my ministry job and that my ministry will take a long time before it really begins to sprout. But either way, that is why I feel like I am struggling. I want to do effective ministry so bad that it is eating me from the inside out. I want to implement some new programming, but in order to get that off the ground, I need to know my kids better and their needs. Because they come first.

And what is the point of trying to have engaging conversation with them if all they is to NOT talk about the letters of Paul and the concept of grace. They want to talk about stuff that is happening in their lives that week. They want share their own passions, and maybe even their own faults.

I dream of launching a new program on Super Bowl Sunday during halftime. Where we can literally just sit around and talk about what is going on in our own lives, and having. Maybe call it, "Shema" which is Hebrew for listen. Because if we want to minister the first thing that we always have to do is listen. I would want it to be a room open for speaking, and saying what you need to say, and others listening respectfully and then responding. I would want it to start off with minimal structure, because I don't know where it needs to go.


But I still sit here and wonder. Do I have time to waste another week? What would happen if I waited a week longer to start implementing this programming? Do the kids deserve to be forced to wait another week? If somebody, told me that only two kids are going to show up to this gig, I would still make it happen. Maybe those kids need it and needed last week, but it wasn't there.


I didn't have a destination in mind for this post. So if you made it this far, thanks, we made it together. Don't forget to come back for other thoughts from me and to see how these ideas unfold in the real world.