Well, folks, we've been here one week. Some day, I'll look back on this entry and say, "Wow, we had only been here a week.." I can't express this enough: Your welcoming arms, your generosity, your love shown not just to me, but to my kids and my beautiful wife, have been AMAZING to say the least. We already feel like this is our home. I can't wait to get into regular life with you folks. The future is very, very bright.
I wanted to take this opportunity to explain a very important part of my ministry approach. I'll try to keep this brief for now, and then we'll have a meeting soon to discuss these things in a little more detail. But here's the nutshell:
PURPOSE.
EVERY SINGLE THING WE DO in this youth ministry will have purpose. And they will ALWAYS fall into one or more of these five specific purpose categories:
Service
Growth
Evangelism
Worship
Fellowship
Everything we do, whether it's a trip with 75 people or a one on one lunch or a night of just hanging out watching movies or a mission trip to Mexico, EVERYTHING will have a purpose. A deep, powerful, and important purpose. And the purposes all feed each other.
Service: Anything we do to serve other people, to meet their immediate physical or emotional needs, also meets their spiritual needs because it's DIRECT imitation of Jesus. Christ walked from town to town, healing the sick and blind, not just preaching sermons. He got down next to them on his knees and listened to their stories. This is why we serve.
Growth: Anything we do to grow spiritually is of obvious importance. Personal spiritual disciplines, ranging from the more "mainstream", such as personal prayer time or reading the Word more regularly, to the much more difficult and unexplored, such as fasting, will bring us closer to our God.
Evangelism: Sharing Christ, plain and simple. But it's more "simple" than we ever realize. It's so much more than just preaching sermons. ANYONE can do this. Anything we do that involves our teens telling people, either by their words OR their actions, is evangelism. Anything that points someone toward putting their Savior on in baptism is evangelism.
Worship: This is so much more than singing. Anything we do that praises God is worship. Singing songs of praise is a huge part of that, but it goes so far beyond it as well. Worship is anything that focuses our hearts on telling God how amazing He is, how thankful we are to Him, how much we need Him, how much we love Him.
Fellowship: We NEED each other. We simply can't over-emphasize this. Christ set up the church, and called it his body, because we need each other. He spent the last week before the cross talking more about unity than anything else because we need each other. Spending time together develops trust. Trust breaks down walls. Breaking down walls gives these teens a safe place to be themselves and to belong. And that sense of safety and belonging literally saves lives. So the night of playing video games together has more spiritual value than anybody ever gave it credit for. And it's been planned that way on purpose.
So when different events are presented to the teens and to the church, you'll hear me say, "This is a growth event", "This is fellowship trip", etc., know that there's a purpose behind literally everything we do, whether it drives us to tears or makes us ache with laughter. EVERYTHING has a purpose.
Thank you all so much for your trust, your love, your generosity, your acceptance. The list just goes on and on. Like I said, the future is a bright one. And it's gonna be a good ride getting there.
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