Guy's retreat

The guy's retreat this past weekend was a blast. Amazing, fun and fulfilling... but very very tiring. I won't say much right now about it except...

Dance, elmo, dance.

Zach is dancing

and it is awesome.

Nobody can dance to pokemon like Zach. watch and learn...

this is the ultimate showdown...

Hung out w/ the kids after re:find on Wednesday. Warren busted out into the ultimate showdown song. My youth are awesome.

Not sure what exactly God is calling me to do w/ my life, but I know I want to do it well. I know it involves people. I know it involves my intellect. I know it involves putting aside my intellect at times. I just don't know exactly what it looks like to do this.

I signed up for a few youth ministry training things. I look forward to asking a ton of hard questions and seeking hard answers. I hope these days will embolden me to seek a better way of doing what we do.

More to come later...

Rock and/or roll

I love my mid high praise team. They rock the house!

So I decided it would be good to get back to blogging. What a better way to start than to start posting short videos of my wonderful job!

These kids are awesome. They have a ton of enthusiasm for music and for this group. Can't wait to see what God does through them in the future.

Right now, at my job, I am the acting interim director of Youth Ministry. My job description kind of reads like this - do everything you used to do, and also everything else.

Fun times. I'm gonna try and post to this blog as often as possible. If you still check it, good for you! That took perseverance.

If you're new, go back and read my old posts. then stick around anyway! I might eventually say something worth reading....

Comments

This is from an article by Len Hjalmarson. Really good article. Talks about the church.

• First, significant relationships tend to decline as an organization grows in size. It becomes more and more difficult to connect personally as organizations increase in size and complexity, and thus community itself becomes a rare commodity. Yet the church is first a community, and only incidentally a congregation. When we fail to be a community, we are not truly a church.
  

I agree in part. I am beginning to wonder if the role of the 'church' is to actually be a community, or if we are to help create communities...

• Second, bureaucracy increases as organizations expand, and efficiency and management become the chief concerns.

No argument here.

• Third, large groups organize for safety, not vulnerability.

I think this one is big. I think that the larger your group gets, the less connected every one is, you find more and more hidden weakness and faux righteousness. The answer to this could be to never let the big group replace your small community. Don't ever let people think that by participating in the bigger group that they are actually in a community.

• There are two types of ministry environment. In one environment a team or teams are formed to assist leaders to develop and implement their vision (purpose). In the second environment a community is formed around a shared sense of passion (belonging). In the team environment success is understood as empowering the group to reach agreed goals. In the community environment success is understood as empowering individuals to belong and to reach their creative potential.
  

So then... why not have the team environment in place to help bring about the community environment on a smaller scale?