T- 1 hour until my first youth meeting as youth director. I think everything is in order but I'm surprisingly nervous. This morning I joined the church here. I got to the point where being a member in Illinois where I cannot give my presence, gifts, or service (I can still do the prayers part) just didn't make sense. When you join a UMC, you agree to give your prayers, presence, gifts and service. I can do that here with ease and really felt like I needed to make the move and join the church here. It was a funny process for me though because I've been here 2 years and a lot of the members of the congregation consider me to be family. I got hugs upon hugs upon hugs this morning standing in front of 3 separate worship services, and truly do feel that was the right move for me. I guess it was just odd to have them all welcome me when I've been here for awhile. Leaving Illinois Great Rivers behind was a huge step for me, but it really needed to be done.

Tonight we're eating, talking a bit of logistics, playing some games and then having discussion on a music video by Linkin Park. It should be a good time but I have butterflies in my stomach nonetheless. I probably won't have a huge group as a lot of my youth are on vacation, but the ones that show up will have fun. Once school starts back up I'll have a distinctive program but for a few weeks we'll just be doing games and having a lesson related to something in pop culture. With working two jobs for a month that is about the extent to which I can come up with anything spectacular. It makes me feel a little inadequate, but hopefully the time I've put into this week and next week (and I won't even be there next week) will show that I care about what the youth do each week even if it isn't exactly how I want youth group to look. It should be a good afternoon though but now I'm going to go finish getting ready and spend some time in prayer for the youth before they get here.

On a related note, oh how I love working on Sunday afternoons. It is quiet, the phones don't ring, and I can get a ton of stuff done. It is definitely great.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 08, 2007 at 3:48 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.