marbles

Oh to finally have the time to take a few minutes to write and babble on about things of little interest is a beautiful thing. Life these past weeks has been far too crazy but whenever I begin to go down that road of whining about being too busy I realize that I create my schedule and my overfilled days are 100% my fault. God help me to learn that busy does not equal productive.

So a few things have been rattling around in my head and I think I will use my blog to air them out. First I recently got back from a weekend with our middle school students. It was a typical weekend of little sleep, many conversations and students laughing at their own farts till the early hours of the morning. The goal for the weekend was to see students grow in their relationships with God and each other. A fairly common goal but it has lead to a lot of thinking about how this process really happens. I firmly believe that God is the one that works in us to transform our lives but I also believe that we play a role in our own lives and each others. But that is where I get fuzzy. How do we do that best? How do students grow or at least what can we do to help them and not wound them as so many churches have done to our generation growing up. How do we do that in our own lives? How can we reach those who know nothing of God's love or grace and also foster a place for those were almost born in a church to not become cold to it? I don't think there is any universal answer and I am just afraid that we could do so much more and are not.

The other ministry related thing, I need to get out more, is how do we best reach those totally outside of our doors. 'Our doors' being the doors of an existing church building. How do we create community that not only draws people in but also actively reaches out? And how do we do that with authentic love and real relationships? I want to be part of that.

Finally and most serious. How is it that I can train for another marathon and still have a gut? I mean isn't that one of the bonuses involved in this sort of work? I need to read those forms I signed and check the fine print. Something here is not right.