Don't call it a comeback...

Let's not talk about how poorly I am at updating this blog. Let's not talk about the fact that I haven't done anything with it in a month. Let's instead just go into what's going on now.
This Sunday, November the 15th is the first church service of the painted door. (thepainteddoor.org) You can view some more information here: thepainteddoor.org. We are getting really excited about it. Lots of cool things have been happening as we have geared up for the service.
Today at prayer meeting (which happens every Wednesday @ 7am @ Eckhart park) we talked about some of the practices, the rhythms, of what we want to be about. We talked about fellowship and hospitality, and the difference between them. The conversation about what hospitality consists of really spoke to me. We talked about hospitality being reaching out and caring for the needs of those you interact with. It's much more than inviting them to church, it's building a relationship, meeting them whever they are and trying to fill whatever needs you can. My family is not really a "church family," that is an area of my life that that has become very much my own. Because my faith is who I am, because it is such a big part of my social life, I often neglect my family. I have set plans for weekly Bible studies, and prayer meetings and church service, and yet I don't have a time to hang out with my parents. Now I'm 23, growing up doing yoru own thing is part of life, but for someone who prays for the salvation of his family, someone who desperately wants them to experience a personal relationship with Jesus I really suck at having a relationship wtih them. How am I showing hospitality? How am I inviting otusiders into my world? How am I entering theirs? How am I meeting them where they are?
It has been said that it is hardest to reach out and evangelize your family because they know all the stupid things you do and think. I dunno if that's true, I do know its hard. ANd so then I say, well what was Jesus about? He met people where they were. He healed, he ate with, he loved, he spent time with, he died for. He did the things that people needed, even though he didn't have a home of his own, he showed hospitaltiy to those he interacted with.

Beauty

Today at our prayer meeting (which happens Wednesday Mornings at Echart Park @ 7 am come by) we discussed what is beauty. I am not going to try and retell all the things we spoke of this morning, more because it was early than anything else. What I do want to leave you with is my take on it. Beauty for the Christian is any of those moments those instances that remind us of the perfection of God. Something that reflects our creator. The one who has ultimately made all things beautiful. God is beauty. His creation shows that. Humans show that. Our ability to create shows that. And more than anything the cross. The ugly bloody mess that was the destruction of perfection. The hatred and taunts. The insults and vile spewed towards a carpenter's son. The whips, the punches, the thorns, the nails. It is in this scene. It is in this moment that true beauty is shown. The beautiful love of a God laying down His life for the world. The beautiful love of a sacrifice given to cover the sins of the world, even those people who don't accept it. The beautiful love of Jesus who in his weakest more vulnerable moment, asked God to forgive those who put him on that cross.
There is beauty to be found everywhere you look. And yes these is a certain degree or choice as to what is beautiful, but even that fact shows that we have a God. That we can all see different things, different moments and see beauty and reflect our relationship with God. Where do you see beauty? When was the last time you stopped to see the beauty of God around you? Or dwelt on the beauty of the cross?
As the church, as His bride, we are beautiful in the eyes of Christ. He is going to take His bride come the wedding day no matter what she looks like. Doesn't Jesus deserve a bride who is the most beautiful she can be?

ShUpdates

The title of today's blog comes from LT. As part of our weekly gathering to invoke the Holy Spirit in our lives we do what we call ShUpdates. We update each other on the way the week has been going and general things in our lives. I'm not sure where the SH came from. Just thought I'd explain myself...
Well first big update, I got into TEDS. I just found out on Sunday night. How do you ask? Well a few days before this I received a large envelope from TEDS. I was excited because I thought it was my acceptance letter and I'd start to have some closure on this whole seminary thing. When I opened the envelope I found it to be nothing more than general "thanks for inquiring about the program" information. NOT HELPFUL. It frustrated me to no end. That day while washing windows, I began to pray that God give me an answer about TEDS, good bad or otherwise, in 7 days. I was decided that I had not really prayed like this in a long time, and I really hadn't prayed about seminary as well. I told this to my LT guys. I also found out from Sarah that she was praying for a quick answer as well. I got an email the next day that told me that I would have an answer soon.
Sunday night after watching the Bears squeek out a win against Seattle, I was checking my email and received one from someone in the TEDS admissions department letting me know that I had officially been accepted into the MDIV program. On a Sunday night, at nine at night. MAN GOD IS GOOD!
So now I wait to figure out money and such. But I see this as just another chance to truly lean on God and let Him show just how great of a provider He is.

The other big ShUpdate, the pastor of the church plant that I am involved with moved to Chicago. His name is Mark Bergin. You should pray for him. You should also check out thepainteddoor.org. And check us out on facebook. And keep praying. Anyway....I went out with him on Monday night to get to know him and I thought he was a really cool dude. I'm excited about the thinigs we talked about and his plan of attack and really I'm excited that he's never done this church planting thing. I'm excited to grow and learn and make mistakes and mess up and figure out how to best pursue God and bring the gospel to the city. We talked about the different aspects of what a community group would look like and how to reach the nonchurch folk.
Today we had our first prayer meeting. It was at 7am. At Eckhart park. Which is early and far. But a great way to start the day. You should come to the next one. Next Wednesday. It's good to pray. Anyway...Today while we were praying this idea of helping to plant a church, to try and create something new and unique, to be apart of a group of people who passionately want to see the gospel brought to people, man that was cool. And it felt real. I have been talking about and praying about this church plant for so long it just became this thing that I talked about. But now its here and real and we are hitting the ground running. I'm pumped. i hope to update this blog more often with the events and my thoughts and feelings as we go forward.

For HIS Kingdom and by HIS mercy,
peace out kiddos.

My little brother is home. God is so good I can't express it.

Quick Update

I am procrastinating washing windows so I will update real quick, even though this whole staff blog thing seems to be a failed experiment. Oh well it was a nice idea. I am one day away from being done with my internship at Windy City. I have no idea what is next for me but I am excited to see what doors God opens for me. This is gonna be fun. For anyone who reads this, I want to leave you with this idea from scripture.
In Revelation 2 John writes to the church in Ephesus that they have forgotten their first love which is Christ. He tells them to get back to that point, this is what I challenge you to do. Remember how good it was when you got first saved, or those times in your life when you knew that everything you did everything you werer about was pointed to Christ. How good that was. Get back to that. More later hopefully.

Ooops

So I am supposed to be doing the devo blog this week. I totally forgot till just now. DANG! So this post is to say the following:

1. Cleveland= eh ok.
2. White Sox= In trouble
3. My cousin has a sweet house.
4. Long next few days, lots of window washing to do.
5. Big ups to Eric Fisher he is graduating in a few days
6. Big ups to Zach Pietrini who has a birthday coming up on Friday. WAHOO!

Gotta go post a devo for tomorrow morning. Dang I can't believe I forgot. Dang! Check out the devo tomorrow.

Love you guys.

Failure

Yes I know it's Thursday and I didn't post yesterday or the day before. I'm sorry. I can't apologize enough. Trust me I am as disappointed as you are. I wanna get regular with this. Which means there will be days when I post sillyness (see last post) and days when there is a little more substance hopefully. Today I want to share a passage that I read with Alex and Aaron when I met with them. It comes from Is 40:9-11
O Zion, You who bring good tidings, Get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, You who bring good tidings, Lift up your voice with strength, Lift it up, be not afraid; Say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!" 10 Behold, the Lord GOD shall come with a strong hand, And His arm shall rule for Him; Behold, His reward is with Him, And His work before Him. 11 He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, And carry them in His bosom, And gently lead those who are with young.

The point that I want to share with you has to do with the Lord's arm. Let's think for a minute about the fact that Jesus was a carpenter and so he was ripped. Moving on from that. It says that God's hand will be strong and will rule. Jesus is our King of Kings. Our ruler. The LORD! He is the one who will return to us on a white horse to judge.
At the same time He is our Shepherd. The GOOD shepherd. With that same arm that He will judge and rule He also gathers His flock to himself. He will carry his flock, that's us. He will carry us when we need to be carried. He will guide us. He will feed us. Our God is both an almighty King of Kings and justice right ruler, but He is also our tender shepherd who loves and cares and lays down His life for the sheep.
Jesus guide me. Lead me. Protect me.

Still goin.

Hi all. I am once again cuttin it really close by posting this at 11:13 in the pm. I will get better soon I promise. Sarah is here with me. There is a light on in the room and both my parents are here and all of our feet are on the floor so there is nothing shady going on here. We are going to watch a movie. Sarah hasn't seen many so any suggestions would be helpful. So if you read this in the next 5 min and have a suggestion call me.

Jesus really loves you. He died on the cross for your sins. He gave you a free gift of eternal life.

We are having a ________ cr______ fight tomorrow night. I'm excited.

Peace out.

Sunday

So today is the day that the Lord has made.
He is good and awesome. He totally showed up this morning and granted me with a peace beyond all understanding. MAN HE IS AWESOME!
WOW! So from now on I don't want to post on Sundays unless I have something really awesome to share. Sunday can be a crazy day. But I just wanted to thank everyone who prayed and encouraged me this week and today.

Sundays A Comin'

Welp, it's Saturday night. I'm preachin in the morning. Nothing more to do but pray and get some rest. THANKYOU for everyone who has been prayin for me this week, I really appreciate it.
Father use yoru servant. May it be your words and not mine. May it be you and not me. May you increase and I decrease. Lord give me peace that surpasese all understanding. At the end of the day, may you be glorified. AMEN!

Another Day Another Post

Back again. Just gettin this one in before the buzzer. Robert has yet to even think about responding to my challenge which is a pity. Today is Friday, I worked on my sermon after I preached or praught, (a past tense form of the word preach that my friend David Goetz made up.) for Steve and Adaline and Bob. After reworking it I feel like it is much cleaner and easier to follow. Today I preached again, this time only for Steve. He had more constuctive criticism for me. There are some things I am going to finish before I finally stop tinkering with it. Pastor Steve told me to just stop at some point. He has given me a lot of helpful tips for this Sunday. Though I'm not gonna lie I'm still kinda nervous.
So when I was younger I used to dress up and pretend to be Indiana Jones. I mention this because I am watching the first Indiana movie with Sarah. When we grow up we stop doing fun things like that. We stop using our brains for fun and fantasy. We start thinking critically and logically. Why? I'm not sure, but I do know that I didn't really ever hear of either of those words till school.
Try to think outside the box today. Try to let your imagination get the best of you. Don't think like a grown up, think like a kid. Have fun.

Day One

Well this is day one of my daily blogging challenge to Bob Hedge. I'm not sure if he actually accepted the challenge but I do know that it is 9:30 and he has yet to post. I know this one is late but, better late than never.
I am in the process of editing and reworking the structure of my sermon. I have in theory been "working" on it all day but doing work at the church on a thursday just doesn't work. Too many people around, but really I'm not complaining because I had some really good conversations today. I am listening to the Bulls Celtics game in double OT once again. One of the best playoff series ever. And it sounds like the Bulls are making this series go to seven. But I'm not calling it yet, these games have been crazy.
Back to work for me. If you could be praying for peace for me I felt this morning like this week is taking forever but now just a few hours later I feel like i don't have enough hours in the day for all i gotta do today.

Challenge to Robert Hedge

I have not been faithful to the blogging world. Nobody has really been bugging me which means that the three or four people who were reading this blog have since stopped. DANG! Well that means that now I can write whatever I want and not really get into trouble. Other than the fact that it's connected to the church website.
So I'm preaching this week. A little nerve wracking. I had my trail run today and got some real good feedback from Randy Simon and Paula. Bob was Paula.
So my challenge, starting today I am going to try and post a blog every day. We gotta try to get this blogging thing going here. Even if I'm done as the intern soon we gotta get this rollin. So Robert "Bingo Bongo" Hedge I challenge you to match me post for post. We'll see who drops off first. Game on.

Spring Isn't Here Yet.

I just wanted to let everyone know that Spring is going to be officially starting on Thursday. Spring has begun to knock on the door of Chicago because baseball season has begun, more importantly the Cubs season began, and it began with a win. (Unlike the Reds which lost their opener...ouch) I am telling you that I believe that Spring begins Thursday because it is the first day of the Master's golf tournament. Nothing more clearly represents spring like the green course and Amen Corner. Spring is here and I am really excited. I'm tired of hiding from the cold, I need to be outside playin golf. I am predicting here right now that this is the year that I finally beat my dad in a round. I'm calling it.

tuesday rambles

So Pastor Bob posted about how he was given a book to read by Pastor Steve and how he wants to be respectful to him and get it done and blah blah blah. If you read his blog he would make it seem that he was given a personal assignment to read a book. no no. We were all given books to read. So really Bob is just coping out. I'm just sayin....

So my friends (Sarah, Clyde, Betsy, and Rachael) have given me grief because they want me to make sure that I write about Jesus. Tonight in junior high we talked about Mark 16:15 Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. I think the Greeks should have translated gospel into GREAT NEWS instead of GOOD NEWS. The fact that we no longer have to go to hell the fact that we never have to be seperated from God.
Lord, Thank you for the cross. I will never understand your love. Thank you.

But Wait it's not a Wednesday.

The planets have aligned in such a way that has caused me to be a bloggin on a Monday morning. Aparently my pastor of worship, Mr. Bingo-Bongo himself has decided that people win blog wars by who posts on any given day or who posts the coolest thing? I guess that makes sense in some way, I think it's a guy thing that forces us once we make up a game to then come up with how to determine the winner and loser. At any rate, as long as I post just about every day and don't constantly go to the youtube well I think I will win. Or lose because who blogs every day?

This past weekend the high school youth group (WHICH MEETS ON SUNDAY NIGHTS AT 6:30 AT WINDY CITY COMMUNITY CHURCH) went on our annual all nighter BREAKAWAY! We go see a wolves game, (they lost) then we saw a band and heard a gospel message then went bowling, then to this huge open gym/pool fitness joint, then to this fun world place with goKarts and laser tag and video games. It was a lot of fun as always, though it was a super long night. What was cool about the trip was that we invited the 8th graders of our Junior High program (WHICH MEETS ON TUESDAY NIGHTS AT 7:00 PM ALSO AT WINDY CITY COMMUNITY CHURCH) to come out and join the high schoolers on this trip as a way to ease their transition into the high school youth group. I think they had some fun, and they got to see what the high school youth group is like and what they are getting themselves into.

With this addition to our high school group for the next few weeks we are going to be looking at unity, what it means what it is and why as Christians we are called to it. I think the New Testament church had to deal with this issue a lot as they had to learn how to take Jews and Gentiles and put differences and cultures aside and do church. This is alot of what we will be dealing with in high school group now that the 8th graders are officially members of the high school group as well. It'll be interesting to see what the group begins to look like as we start to head to the summer.

Please pray for both the junior high and high school ministries as we see the year coming to a close and we look to set the kids up for victory during the summer months and how we can best support and encourage them in their walks, even though there is no regular ministry for them.

i think I win today bob.

On and I'm on chapter 4. Boo Yah.

CHALLENGE!

So my super cool girlfriend got me a book by Mark Drisscoll for Valentine's Day. The book is Vintage Jesus. Pastor Robert Hedge of Windy City Community Church fame also has the book and wants to read through it so starting Friday the two of us are going to have a race to see who can get done with it first. Bob has a two chapter head start so I gotta catch up before Friday.

Anyone who owns the book or wants to join the race can do so.

Well It's about that Time

As Pastor Bob-O made mention to me this morning this is my usual every two weeks during shared office time post.

I don't really have anything deep or insightful to share with you all so I think I am going to cop out and pull a Bob (aparently I want to start a war) and just post a video. Enjoy

Washed Clean

I have been lacking on updates and I apologize. I do have a really cool piece of information to tell you. I went to Camp Awana a few weeks ago for Solid Ice the high school co-ed weekend. During the weekend I got to hang out with some of my camp friends I don't see very often. It was alot of fun. The cool story I want to share is that two high school kids from my youth group accepted Jesus as the savior and became Christians. That made the weekend a success. I think of it now because I was out doing window washing today on a new account. (If you are in the need of a new piano check out Steinway of Chicago in Highland Park.)
This building's windows hadn't been washed in a long time. I've been keeping my eye on the building as it was getting rented out. In washing the windows today I saw just how scummy they were. One of the cool things I love about my window washing jump is the instant gradificaiton of making a dirty window clean. Very few jobs have the kind of results where you can instantly see the fruits of the labor. As I was washing the windows and seeing the dirt come off I was thinking alot about the thing that God has been putting on my heart lately and that is to rediscover the gospel daily. What I mean by rediscover the gospel is to every day stop and really dwell on the grand scale of love and mercy that we have received from God through the cross. The amazing gift we have been given through the cross blows me away and I don't want to forget it. God has washed us clean and made us new and shiny. And he continually does it, even when we get dirty and full of sin, all we have to do is ask for forgiveness and he makes us clean.
This all seems kinda rambling but I've been very excited about my new brother and sister. I hope that this entry has reminded you if you are a Christian that God is awesome and loves you and the gospel is amazing and we can NOT gloss over it.

Much love and blessings,
Tim

Back Again Then Gone Again

Hello to my loyal reader(s?). Sorry for the lack of updates since camp I have actually had a few ideas to write about but never got around to taking them from head to keyboard. I went to camp to weekends ago which was a fun experience, not the experience that I was expecting but that is another post for another time about assuming and expecting when dealing with hearing the voice of God.
So I am back once again and getting ready to leave for wonderful Camp Awana for Solid Ice. Solid Ice is the co-ed high school winter weekend that Camp holds as sort of a half way point for the kids who hit up Solid Rock during the summer. I'm looking forward to a fun weekend, good worship, and usually a really good football game. This will only be my 3rd time being a leader at Awana, last year's SI was my first experience and I wasn't ready for it. This year I hope to spend more time in prep prayer and reading. I am really excited for the trip up there as I get a few hours alone in the car to just pray and worship as I drive.
Last night cemented in my mind that I have the coolest job. Tuesday nights is our Junior High Youth Group night. Our activity for the night involved running around the gym while dodging 17 screaming flying monkeys. Yes, you read that right. Flying monkeys and junior high kids. BALLER! We had so much fun last night. I really am trule blessed.
When I decided to not go directly into seminary I knew that I wanted to do something of service for the year I would be taking off. I almost left for New Orleans but I decided to stay home and be with family (something I don't do enough of interestingly). This year I have become TimtheIntern and it has been a blast for me. I really have no idea what lies ahead for me once my internship is over. I don't know if its school, or work, or Chicago or not. I know that I need to be taking steps and trusting that God is going to open and close doors for me but I so far have been too overwhelmed and terrified to do anything. But even with all of that happening even with my year being very open and unplanned I know that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. I am where I am supposed to be. I'm doing the best I can to serve God with the position I have.
Psalm 37:4-5 says "Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in HIm, and He shall bring it to pass." WOW. These verse really speak to me. DELIGHT YOURSELF ALSO IN THE LORD, I really enjoy the internship. I enjoy playin with the kids, I enjoy being a part of the staff. I have really loved these last few months, its a fun gig. AND HE SHALL GIVE YOU THE DESIRES OF YOUR HEART I'm interested to see what God shows me is the desire of my heart. I think he knows better than me. And I think that plays a lot into what this upcoming year will look like. COMMIT YOUR WAY TO THE LORD...I'm a sinner saved by grace. I think that's enough explination. TRUST IN HIM, AND HE SHALL BRING IT TO PASS: I don't always trust Him, I know He'll take care of me, it tells me RIGHT THERE! And yet I can't let myself trust Him. I'm scared to go out on a limb like that. I gotta.

Phantom Ranch and shameless website plugs

Now that our new website, (http://www.windycitycommunitychurch.org/) is LIVE all the staff are jumping to update their blogs. You should check out Pastor Adaline, Pastor Steve, and Pastor Bob's blogs. I am a follower of each of those so you can get to them from my blog, or from http://www.windycitycommunitychurch.org/.
This weekend I am going to be going with the junior high youth group to Phantom Ranch for a winter retreat. I'm really pumped this is a great time for me to get to run around with the kids and play as well as I get to take some time for me to do some check in with myself and where I am in ministry and just life in general. Last year I was dealing with whether or not I should leave for New Orleans on a year long ministry trip. I wrestled with whether or not I really wanted to leave my family and friends. I couldn't hear a clear answer until I was at camp and finally got to a place where I was open to wherever God wanted me to be. It was so clear, I was so happy and at peace.
Phantom Ranch is also owned by Midwest Christian Church, which also owns Midwestern christian Academy which is where I went to grade school. During my time as a 7th and 8th grader we would go for a weekend for "outdoor education" I have lots of memories of my time there, (falling in the swamp, falling in the lake; you can ask for those stories some other time) being up there takes me back to a time when I was younger and the world was way easier. Everything was simplier for me, including in many ways my faith.

In Matthew 18 the disciples ask Jesus who is the greatest in the kingdom? Jesus responds by calling over a child and tell his disciples, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

In grade school I had no arguments about Calvin vs. Arminian. I didn't worry about postmillenial vs postmillenial. I didn't care to really try to decipher how the Trinity works. I didn't wrestle with why we don't have any stories about Jesus as a youth. (Sidebar: If anyone reading this does not struggle with these things, you don't need to. If you do I understand where you are coming from and in no way am criticizing it, that's just not how my mind works.) I understood that Jesus was my savior and because of that I was not going to hell. It was simple and easy. Then High school came and I learned about other religions and how they affect me. Then college came and I heard all these different debates about things that I had either never heard of or never really considered. Why is it that as we get older we seem to cloud our minds, and hearts with junk that isn't important? We overstate the importance of your stance on the rapture and undersell John 3:16. Somewhere along the way I think we forget just how simple and easy God has made salvation for us. I think maybe that's why I like doing junior high ministry. It's fun and freeing and simple and the message is the gospel, bare bones.
I told the guys in my bible study (part of Windy City Community Church ministries found at http://www.windycitycommunitychurch.org/) that were going to camp this weekend to write down at least one goal they have for the weekend and to bring it with them. For me, my goals are 1) to have at least one good conversation with a junior high boy. 2) Peace and rest in my mind. 3) Remember and refresh myself in the gospel, and remind myself that Jesus told us to "humble ourselves like a child."

Worship

I love to worship. I love to worship and mostly I love to sing. I'm admittedly not the greatest singer of all time but I do like to do it. In the last year God has spoken more and more to me through worship time. I can't count how many times I have singing and God has broken me down. I love to be able to disappear from the world and tell God how great and awesome I think He is. It truly is a time when God comes into my brain and reminds me of the different things that I need to be working on and showing me what He is trying to teach me.

One of my jobs that I do on Sunday nights I run the tech for the High school youth group worship time. We don't have a live worship band so we have to do cds that we sing along to, which also has its advantages such as you don't have to worry about the voices being off or having to do levels. What is awesome about the night is that we get to blast and blare that music as loud as we want to. We get to jump and yell and be silly it's great. What is fun about running the tech is once everything is turned up super high and the bass is rocking and I am in the back seperated from the kids I can yell at the top of my voice and not bug anyone.

In Psalm 66 David tells us to "MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE." We are called to yell scream shout dance kneel sing rap play all to sing out the honor of his name. David did it all the time. When the ark of the covenant was being brought into the holy city David danced and sung and was doing things that a king isn't supposed to do. But He was excited and thrilled by the presence of God.

I think my favorite thing about doing ministry with the youth is getting to worship with them. Watching the high school kids who are just starting to learn what worship truly is and make it their own. The Junior High kids laugh and dance and enjoy themselves, they get to listen to loud fun music and their parents aren't around to restrict them. These kids are a great reminder of enjoying God and enjoying worship.

A Cold Day in January

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to the rants and ravings of a poor college graduate. With this being my initial post on this blog, I just wanna give a brief introduction to myself. So without further ado, allow myself to introduce.....myself.

If you are well versed in movie quotes you caught that last line being from Austin Powers. I am a big fan of movie quotes and putting them into conversation. It bugs people who aren't "movie" people. But those who are in the know usually appreciate an obscure reference.

As I said before I am a poor college graduate. I graduated in May of 08 from Trinity International University. I graduated with a BA in Biblical Studies, which when I tell people the next question is always "What are you gonna do with that?" My usual response, "be poor." Actually I plan on going to seminary and getting an Mdiv, I want to do full time pastoral ministry. I figured the Bib Studies degree would be the best route to take to get me where I need to be for the Mdiv. See, I plan ahead, I'm tryin to follow what i think God's plan is.

So now, the reason why I'm writing this blog. Over the last 7 or 8 years I have on and off again used blogs for an outlet. I'm sure there is at least one or two that i never shut down, and are still roaming the world wide internet. Anyway, this blog exists because I'm an intern.

After I graduated I knew I wanted to spend the year before I went back to seminary, in some type of ministry. Originally that was going to be New Orleans, but that's a story for a different day. Anyway, after looking around online for a youth pastor job, I realized that the kids I wanted teach, and pour into, the church I wanted to worship in, and serve, was home. I wanted to stay in the church that I've been in forever. Even though I want to eventually go into pastoral ministry, I saw and still see a place where I can be used in youth ministry at my church.

Here's my ultimate plan. The thing I want for these kids before the school year ends. I want them to feel what it's like to really be cared about by the body of Christ. I want them to feel loved, poured into, accepted by the church. I want these kids to know that no matter what they will find grace and love from a community of people who know that they find the exact same thing in each other and from those kids. I got great high school kids in this group. Some of them are really on fire for God. I want to help further that, I want to put them into a position to be able to hear from God what it is He wants of them. This youth group could completely change our church if they want to. I don't know what our next step is, but I'm tired of standing around, and I'm getting ready to take a next step with the kids, hope the church is ready.