No, I’m not leaving Journey or Student Ministries.

But I have been asked to expand my oversight responsibilities to include children’s ministry as well.  [Probably cuz we I have 5 of them living in my home :)]  This means in addition to being hands on in high school,  I’ll also be overseeing the staff and volunteers responsible for our ministries that target anyone at Journey ages birth through college age. We’re officially calling it a “generations pastor”.  Sounds like a lot, but we have a great paid and volunteer team that is going to be expanding some here in the near future as we hire a couple of more part-time slots and provide tons of ways for volunteers to get involved.  Oh, and for the first time in almost 17 years, I’ll have a close to full time administrative assistant working exclusively with our team!!!  I hope you saw me jump out of my seat when I said that.  I’m almost giddy with excitement.  I can’t wait to see how God will work in and through this team in 2011.

This weekend, all our parents who drop their kid(s) off in Children’s ministry will be getting a letter we’re passing out.  Here’s a copy of the official details:

Dear Parent,

Thanks so much for partnering with us here at Journey in the spiritual development of your child.  We count it an extreme privilege to join you in the process of inviting a generation to understand, own, and live out a life changing faith in Jesus.

To that end, we’ve recently experienced some changes in leadership here at Journey in our children’s ministries area you might want to know about.   During January, our Children’s Ministry Pastor, Chris Rader will transition out of Children’s Ministry.  This is in response to a leading Chris has had for a while from God about his changing passions and calling on his life. Chris will not be leaving our pastoral team, but instead will now be giving leadership to Pastoral Care here at Journey (care groups, benevolence, bereavement, marriage counseling, etc. )

In his place, Brian Berry, our Student Ministries Pastor, is expanding his oversight and leadership to include the children’s area too.  So, in the coming months Brian will be helping to lead a team of staff and volunteers to provide the same fun, safe, and spiritually engaging children’s ministry you and your children have come to love.

 Maybe you’re wondering, “How will this change affect my family?”  Well, here’s what we want to reassure you of: 

-We will still provide the same excellent children’s ministry parallel to all our services.  

-Our current check-in and check-out policy works as it always has for the safety of you and your child.  So, keep your cards and gather your stickers and all that fun stuff. 

-As always, we would love to have you help us lead, teach, or just love on kids.  Please let us know if you’re interested in volunteering. ( Simply e-mail our administrative assistant, Pam Molde for more info: pam@journeycom.org)

Serving Jesus and children with you,

Brian Berry  and  Chris Rader

I believed for a long time that “success without a successor is no success at all”.  I repeated it.  I wrestled with it.  I evaluated myself by it.  It just plain sounded right.  Like, if you can’t pass on your skill set or talents or mission or vision or whatever onto anyone else, then you’re simply a flash in the pan.  And that’s not a success- at least not as I defined it.  It seemed in my mind that the truly great leaders were those that took organizations from dying to thriving… or at least from good to Great!

If you’ve been in ministry for any capacity and any length of time, then you know what it is to be discouraged.  You know what it is to feel like you want to quit, like you’re wasting your time, like it’s not worth it and you’re just plain tired of it all.  Sometimes, it seems like half the book of psalms was written when David felt like that.

Regardless, after 17 years of student ministry, I can’t even begin to count the times I’ve felt like that.  Sometimes it last for hours.  Other times it seems like it’s an entire season of it’s own.  Thankfully, this is not one of those times in my life.  If it was, this post would probably be a cry to stop the bleeding.

But without digging too deep, you could find just below the surface of my soul some common sources of discouragement for me:

• DIVISION: when people can’t support one another in ministry, it drains me.
• DEFECTION: I have a LONG list of former students who at one point went on missions trip with me, served on teams with me, prayed with me, loved on me, encouraged me, took notes on hundreds of sermons I gave, and even served with me as they grew up into adults who have for one reason or another, ditched the faith we once shared.  It ruins me every time.  Some that go years back in my past still haunt me almost daily. 
• GOOD INTENTIONS GONE BAD:  when I try and say or do something helpful and it ends up wounding someone instead of helping them.  So discouraging to feel like a failure. 
• BEARER OF BAD NEWS:  when I have to be the one to bring a tough word of correction or rebuke that I know won’t be well received, I can easily get discouraged.  Especially if they choose to leave as a result.  
• LONELINESS:  when I feel alone in ministry, like no one is in this with me… I easily get discouraged and feel like I should just bail.
• … and on and on… 

So, what do you do to get out of that rut?  How do you rebound from discouragement and back into encouragement when things aren’t good?  I don’t know what will be true for you, but here’s 3 things that have helped me… mostly that I’ve learned the hard way.

• RETURN TO CALLING.  I owe this reminder to a time in ministry when I literally did quit.  Thankfully, my senior pastor refused to accept my resignation.  Doubly thankful that my youth pastor/mentor told me that I needed to return to my calling as I sat in his office spilling my guts.  He said it was a “why am I doing this in the first place issue?” When I’m discouraged, the reason I stay in the game is not because I feel like it.  I never really feel like it in those moments.  Instead I have to consciously ask the question: “Is this what God has called me to be doing?” The answer is the clarity I need to keep going or make a change. 
• SEEK AN AUDIENCE OF ONE.  When I’m discouraged, I often quote Galatians 1:10 and remind myself that whoever is upset with me is not my real audience anyway.  I literally cannot please both God and people. It is impossible. 
• SURVEY MY WHOLE PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL STATE OF MIND.  If I haven’t gotten enough sleep, am not getting a Sabbath, or dealing with tons of messes in tons of places, then I have learned to doubt my own discouragement.  I’ve learned that some feelings, though very real in their emotion, quite simply cannot be trusted. 

This week I have been trying to work on saying no to some things so I can say yes to others.  I even have a few friends trying to hold me to it.

Sounds simple enough.  But yeah, it’s not that simple.

Last night our wash machine broke.  We have 7 people in our home.  A broken wash machine is not good and our family smells bad already- 4 boys smell.  Don’t even think of walking into TJ and Tyler’s room after they’ve been in there all night.  But, I digress.

Anyway, today I had to decide if I was going to try and fix it myself or if I was going to hire someone to do it.  I have the tools to take it apart.  The error code and the manual tells me where the basic problem lies.  The question now is not “can I fix it”, but “should I try to fix it”?  This question comes up every time our cars break, our house breaks, something in my ministry breaks, etc.   I ask this “can I” and “should I” question almost daily.

 In this case, I weighed the situation, my current work load, and the resources available to my family and decided we’d hire some help.  The result?  I lost $185 and gained a functional wash machine in 2 hours and the ability to come home and go for a 3 mile run instead of fixing a wash machine.  Expensive run or wise move?  Guess that depends on your perspective.

Here’s 4 questions worth asking before you go solving that problem…

1. Is this my problem to solve or someone elses?  Am i doing my job or someone elses job? 
2. If it is my problem, is solving this problem worth the exchange?  Like will it cost me in time, resources, and energy and is that collective cost worth it?
3. What is the worst case scenario if I ignore the problem?  Can it wait and if so, for how long?  
4. Is my “attempt to save the day” actually robbing someone else of a chance to learn a valuable lesson via the teacher named “experience”.   Sometimes my desire to help actually keeps people from spiritual growth.  Is this one of those times?  

The first 2 weeks of 2011 we did a 2 week series in our high school program to kick off the new year.  It was simply called “brand new” and was first about a “brand new me” and then a “brand new us”.

Yesterday we reflected on “US” and in the process we looked at Isaiah 1 and the horrible reflection Isaiah prophetically gives a couple of towns based on God’s distaste for their worship.  We agreed we did not want any of these rebukes to be true of us and reflected on the corrective word Isaiah gave them.

I challenged students to join with us to create a new normal in our high school ministry that culminated with the opportunity for them to sign a card indicating their ownership of these “new or renewed corporate values”.

About 2/3 of those who came covenanted together with us to “Count Me In”.  In a weird way, I was encouraged that not everyone participated.  Makes me think that those who did really meant and those who did not either are not interested or not ready.  Either way, I’m glad for the clarity.

We agreed to the following:

WE WILL NOT BE FAKE.

• By this I was not trying to combat hypocrisy so much as the ignoring of questions to appear as though we’re in agreement or understanding.  So, our new normal is that for the foreseeable future, at any point given the sermon that someone has a sincere and genuine question, then the sermon is fully interruptible.  It might take a few weeks for students to believe us because we’ve been an “i talk, you listen” communication environment for a while now, but I’m hoping we can change that as we work together to be honest about our wondering or confusions.