So now I can blog right from my iPhone. How cool is that. So now I will b adding much more often. Of course they will probably shorter since I will give myself carpel tunnel in my thumbs if I write too long. Isn't technology great.

Ok. So now I can blog from my iPhone. They will be shorter but more often. Technology is amazing.

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Insecurity might be my "Achilles Heel"

Have you ever tried to do your best. I mean really tried with all your might just to wonder what effect it is having? There seems to be very little difference, little visible change. After years of working this hard you start to wonder if you still have a gift from God or if you are just tredding water because you used to be a world class swimmer. Lately I have struggled with many decissions in my ministry. I have to constantly remibd myslef that I work for the father, for His pleasure and His will. BUT, this fact gets lost in the midst of what appears on the surface to be dismal failures. Failures that are small but loom big in my mind. Of course, one question does arrise, how do I know they are failures? What am I using as a measurement of success? I think it comes down to numbers. I know that the number of teens that choose to participate in the offerings of our ministry is not important. We are supposed to be mostly concerned with the depth of their spiritual connection to God. BUt how can we hel them along this path if they are not here. And how can I express the lasting eternal implications of a strong and growing relstionship with Chrost to the parents. It seems that parents want their children to have this life long spiritual connection yet they are willing to model personally and sometimes force their children to place these in last place. I feel as though I am failing at reaching this generation of teens and parents. I struggle to get teens to come on a regular basis which makes accounatbility and biblical instruction virutally impossible.

And then there is another issue that weighs heavy on my mind. It's my family's needs. I have found that as my children get older they need me to be home more. I just can't be gone 70+ hours a week anymore. I belive that scripture tells me that my family is to come first before my ministry to the church. How it would kill me if I was to ever fail at that. So how do I balance the needs of a ministry that has me feeling like I am failing, and the increasing needs of my family?

Is god calling me to change the way I minister to teens? Is he calling me to a different type of ministry all together? Is he calling me to increase my efforts with the church? Is he calling me to increase the efforts with my family? I just don't know and Ifind myself in this thought often lately. I trust my God to show me what to do next, but there is a fear in me about the next step.

If you find that you battle with many of these interanl struggles you can take comfort in what God says. "Jeremiah 29:11For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

So how do I know what the next step is? I do as Job 33:33 says, "But if not, then listen to me; be silent, and I will teach you wisdom."

My next step is to be silent and wait to hear my next set of orders what ever they may be. (Most of me wants the orders to be "STAND YOUR GROUND")

A common Lie

Yesterday was a great day. Not only because it was a day that I set aside for God but because I was able to see God working in the life of a young man. It is always a privilege to be a part of what God is doing in the lives of others. To see a change start to happen, to see a person start to ask questions is the most exciting thing. In the midst of this excitement I was hit with something that I found to be a lie that many of us find ourselves believing. Many people feel that it is better to protect others by perpetuating a lie or by not sharing relevant information than to share the truth. We want to protect others from getting hurt. Guys are especially bad at this because we are fixers by nature. We don't want others to be hurt by our actions. When someone feels hurt we always ask, what can I do? So lying sometimes seems like the best way not to hurt someone. But we have to remember that it is not our job to protect others from the truth. It is required of us to be truthful. Their is a right and a wrong way to share the truth. But when done with love and humility it is the right thing to do. The lie we get sucked into is simple. "If I tell them it's going to cause them pain, or let them down, or hurt their feelings." The reality is that a lie, no matter how good our intentions are, not only hurts our relationship with the person but it also strains our relationship with God. Putting a strain on our relationship with God gives Satan a foothold in our life. Where God is not, Satan is staking a claim. Don't make the truth a thing to hide out of a concern for others. If we value our relationships with others and with God, we will always speak truth in Love and humility because we know it is the right thing to do.

THE DEATH OF A LANGUAGE

I remember when i was growing up my mom would make my sister melissa and I attend what she called "Family Meetings". My sister and I would have described it as torture in disguise. But the reasoning for it was based on something that seems to be a fading part of our american culture. My mom wanted us to communicate what we were going through in life and she wanted us to share our feeling on things that were going on in the family. I hated this process almost as much as my sister did, probably more now that Ithink about it. My mom grew to hate these family meetings, mostly because of our obvious distaste for them. I know this because they got called less and less. So in my family and the many familys I get to work with I often wonder why we don't communicate better. What is it about talking with those that are the closest to us that keeps us distant emmotionally? Why do we tend to make close ties with people we have never met before like in chat rooms and social connectors like facebook, but fail to do this with the ones we sit next to every day? I think it is really very simple. Every person wants to feel loved and accepted by someone. A face to face encounter puts us at a high risk of rejection. It's like fishing. If were to go out and bait a hook and cast it into the water the amount of time it would take me to catch something might be 45 minutes. And at the end of 45 minutes I would have one fish. Impressive right? Well lets say I took a bigger boat out and fished using a drag net. After 45 minutes I pull up the net and find that I have caught not just one fish but 385. What sounds more impressive, 1 or 385. Duh!!! So we network looking for the status that likely would elude us if we made friends the old school way. But what is lost? What are we giving up by saying it's ok to exist on the computer but not in the world? Is a sense of committment to friends a sacrifice? Is a loss of accountability diminishing? I watch kids text faster of their little flip phones than I can type on a keyboard the size of a countertop. But these same kids struggle to write a paper using correct english. No wonder people don't know how to act and behave in so many situations. No wonder it seems that there is a growing number of people who crave personal attention to the degree that they will committ crimes to get it. Lets get in their face and make it personal.

Conformity is the root of all progress

Ok. I have never really got into blogging. Mabye it's because it takes time, a commodity I seem to have less and less of these days. Mabye it's because I wasn't sure about the idea of splashing my inner thoughts on the web for the world to see. But as is now obvious, I have decided to conform. So what am I going to be talking about? Excellent question. I don't have an answer for that but I can assure you it will be weird, crazy and often times just plain stupid. So if you want to read the meanderings of a 30 something guy with three kids I invite you back to join in my embarasement. Talk at ya soon.