I’m in charge

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet: I’m the youth leader at church now.  It started back in July when I went to EYE 2005.  I came back from that experience excited about youth ministry.  At the time, I didn’t expect to be doing youth ministry, but God had other plans for me, I suppose.  In September, a young man at church spoke up and asked for a youth group.  One of the themes at EYE was empowering youth to tell the church what they need from the church.  So when our young person asked, I was compelled to respond.

We meet on Sunday mornings between the two services.  So far we’ve just been doing some simple things to get to know each other better.  Our first outing is scheduled for this Sunday evening.  We’re going to the corn maze! 

We’re supposed to do a curriculum on Heifer International.  Heifer buys livestock for impoverished people all over the world.  I don’t want to do Heifer.  I don’t want to do Heifer because I was told to do Heifer.  And, the curriculum only has four modules.  Maybe we’ll do Heifer later.  Right now I’m going to do some things with prayer. 

As the above demonstrates, I have an authority problem.  There is a rift between me and the priest.  I’m not going to go into detail, but let me just say that I’m not so moved to go out of my way for her anymore – not after her half-hearted response to a recent personal crisis which impacted my ability to make her look good.

One of the things I learned at EYE is that by becoming a youth leader, I’m now in a pastoral role.  Here’s what I dread: one of the kids gets pregnant, or gets molested, or tells me s/he is gay.  I’m sooooooooo not qualified to handle any of those!  *except maybe the gay – maybe.