Processing

This past week has been draining, and I'm really in no mood to write. But, I didn't last Friday, so I figured writing today would be a good thing.

Dealing with things at our house not getting done on time is menial, but its been driving me nuts. Thats the least of my worries right now though. My worries focus on our youth students. I've mentioned before that these kids are going through some crazy situations, and that as a leadership staff we've been trying to help them. We know there's only so much you can do, but sometimes that's just not enough. Since the retreat, we've had to make terms and conditions for one of our students to attend any youth activity, and came to the conclusion that another will be going to a different church. Encouraging that decision was not hard; if a student will be better fed and get what they need elsewhere, and believe that God is calling them to that other place, I have no problem supporting them at all. We will miss this student, but look forward to seeing them flourish. Some of the other issues we learn about that the students are dealing with just break your heart. All are important, but some take precedence over others because they include a students(') safety. Very few people in our staff have been trained on how to deal with/handle these situations, and out of the staff who are trained to handle those issues, very few students go to them, and go to different staff instead. These students don't necessarily know which staff is trained, but its a matter of being comfortable talking to whichever staff member they choose to go to. I think something that we need as a staff is to be trained to handle/deal with these kind of issues. We need to know how to help our students effectively, and give them more than a little advice. I would love to see a staff training session (or sessions) take place for our group of staff.

Something else that has been mentioned among a few of us is the seeming lack of committment coming from a few leaders. This could be a miscommunication, these situations generally are, but as staff we need to be on the same page. If someone's committment level is coming whenever they can come that's fine, or if they are all in that's fine, we just need to know, and right now we don't know that for a few of our leaders. That can be frustrating, but it has definitely been a growing process in the fact that we don't know who's coming and what's going to happen, so we can't plan things down to the specifics,.. we've been learning to just let God do what He wants with our time and activities with these students. That has been exhilarating, and we've seen God do some amazing things.

We would love to see our church start the search process for a youth pastor soon. We have been without one for about a year, and since our new senior pastor was just hired, we're eager to get the ball rolling. What's stopping that? The new pastor won't start until the end of March, and the search committee will be waiting to include him in the search process. In my opinion, that is bittersweet. It's exciting to know that the committee wants to include him in the search process, but I think if all three pastors are godly men whose ministry is ran by Christ Himself, and they desire to do His will, the three men will mesh regardless. Granted, we all have our tiffs because we're human, but I don't understand why pastors wouldn't get along. I admit that I'm not a pastor, so I don't know what all they have to do or what goes on when they interact (I'm curious to know though!), but I just see them as being men for a common cause, so it just seems like they should be able to get along. Again, that's just my take though.

So, with everything going on, plus school, it has been draining. I'm trying to rely on God for my strength and to give me the words and actions for working with our students on a daily basis. It's hard. But I've learned that when we are at our weakest point, we are strongest because we are forced to rely on God to meet our needs (2 Corinthians 12:9 - But Jesus said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness). I'm comforted in that, and that is what I'm leaning on very heavily right now as we deal with things and process them in our hearts, minds, and attitudes.

I thank the prayer warriors who lift up our staff and students in prayer. Please continue to do this, we appreciate it more than we could ever express!