Why it's worth it.

Sometimes I wonder if doing the work of ministry in a local church is worth it??? Here is waht I mean, and, allow me to whine a little.
It is long hours and if you are student ministry (as opposed to "big" church ministry), weird hours that take you away from your family and friends. In the fall, my friends get together to watch championship football on certain Sunday afternoons, I get to be there for an hour and then go to the church.
I spend the majority of my Sunday's at church, which makes sense since I am a pastor. The difficulty is knowing that while I am at church, my family is at home. In the summer's this isn't bad because my day off is Friday and my kids won't be in school, but during school, we get one day together. I also end up working a lot of evenings. But my adult life has always been this way.
A also enjoy (tongue in cheek) having my life evaluated by my peers based on the attitudes, feelings, and/or opinions of a 16 year old. I think constantly of how to connect with those I don't connect very often with, but sometimes it just isn't enough. Parents can be demanding (and trust me, I am a demanding one as well) and often hold the student ministries pastor to "Superhuman" status because they desperately want their kids to connect with the church, ministry and Jesus. I can only do so much, at some point it becomes a personal choice of each individual that I as a student ministries pastor have no control of.
As I have gotten older, I have had to stop parents who are vocalizing their disapproval of me, and remind them that I am not in high school, I love their kids, and I am older than they are. This takes them aback for them to realize that you don't have to be young to relate.
In all of this, though, it is not a thankless job. Not at all. I can't count how many parents, friends, and students have thanked me for all that I do. It truly is a lot. In my desk I have a file of all of the "not-so-nice" communications I have received in my 22 years of ministry but as thick as that file is (and it is thick), it is only a fraction of the responses I get that continue to encourage me.
When I was hitting my mid-thirties, I started wondering if ministry was worth it. I mean some deep level thinking for me. I had a huge ministry and we were having lots of fun, but were we building the kingdom? My answer has come a various points through the years. I can't tell you how many times I have received e-mails about former students who are making a difference in their world. They hold on to the truth found in the Gospel and spread it around. Blogs, myspace, facebook; these have all helped me see the impact that one ministry can have. People involved in their churches, reaching out to the people around them. Stuff that touches the heart of a man who has poured his life into his ministry.
Then, you get it. A phone call, an e-mail, a letter (remember, I started ministry before there was e-mail) that let's you know what someone is doing and the role I had in getting them there. It is worth it, and will continue to be. When yesterday, a former student who is now in college, emails me and asks if she can come in and "catch up." She wants to know what is going on and wants me to know what is going on with her. It is worth it! When two former students (from my first years in ministry) take me out to breakfast before I move to Iowa, to show me pictures of their families and tell me of their involvement in the community and church. It is worth it.
It is worth it. (I just need to remind myself of "why" once in a while)

Irresistable Revolution

I was given the book Irresistable Revolution by a friend of mine last week and have been reading it ever since. It is very thought provoking and annoying all at once. One thing it has done is make me think through my various views of what it is to be christian? Have we as a group of people bought into a conducive lifestyle for what we have grown up with or desire or are we deeking the life-changing presence of Jesus messing up our lives? Like I said, I find myself gravitating to some of the points of the book desiring the more simple way of life, but there are other parts of the book that flat out piss me off. I know the author does this by design because he wants people to think. Kudos to him; I have been thinking....

Auntie Em, Auntie Em...

We ended up making our trip to the Twin Cities this last weekend. We went up early on Saturday and came home on Sunday. Our neighbor Dan completely took the tree out. We counted over 200 rings, bringing the tree to living in the 1700's. What a legacy.

Rene' and Emma (Emma is trying to make sense of all of it)






















This is the back of our house which sustained the most damage















Assessing the damage
















Dan Steele preparing the "branch" to be pulled off the house.
























We are very lucky, we know of others that weren't as fortunate as we were with our house. Our prayers continue to stay with our communities as we now start the task of rebuilding. Please pray for us as we are a little gun shy when we hear storms are approaching.

Yes, we were hit...

When we moved to Muscatine we were told countless times that the curve of the Mississippi River, where we live, somehow keeps tornadoes from hitting in our little city. Well, that myth has been busted.
Some of you heard about the tornadoes that hit Eastern Iowa on June 1st. Well, our house was one of the houses to get hit.
We actually were on our way up to Minneapolis for the weekend. I was going to go to Bethel Seminary's graduation and watch some of my classmates graduate (because of the workload, they fell a year behind our cohort). It was also going to be a little R&R for the fam. Things changed with one phone call.
We were driving to the Twin Cities, through a horrible thunderstorm. We could barely see the road yet we kept moving forward. About 10 miles north of Cedar Rapids we came out of the storm and thought we had a clear shot forward. About 20 miles later our cell phone rang, it was our neighbor and good friend Dan Steele. He was speaking fairly quickly and all I heard was Rene' say "yes," "no," "oh my gosh," and "is there anyone hurt?" Dan went on to tell Rene' that a tornado at our houses and blew the tree in between our houses down. The wind snapped the tree into 3 major pieces. Dan was in his basement and thought it was hailing. When he walked outside he was in disbelief. The corner of my deck was trashed and the gutters were hanging off the back side of our house. We were actually lucky, another foot or so and our new remodel would have been toast.
We instantly turned around and made it home in about an hour and fifteen minutes. Emma, hating storms like she does, was very upset. When we saw the house she started to flip out a little until I made my way in and got her teddy bear. Big teddy was okay, but our cat (who was in the basement) freaked out and threw up everywhere.
We spent the next 6 hours cleaning and cutting up trees. Our small group was there before we got home and many in our church came over almost instantly to help in the cleanup of our neighborhood. It was a unbelievable testimony of community. I get choked up even thinking about the great people of our community. I made 2 phone calls (Kyle Eller and Dan Schoepf) and we had the mess under control in no time. The help was not isolated to us, there were many in our community helped by friends and strangers willing to help in the midst of destructive chaos. Community always comes through!!
Here are some pictures...

Wes Graduated

Yes, Wes graduated. I am very proud of him!!! He is truly not the same young man that entered my office 8 months ago.
I went to his graduation, which is a good half hour away. I was late and ended up getting locked out of the auditorium. I hung around for about a half hour and then thought "he will just have to forgive me." I think he did.
It is a little weird not having him around all the time, but we are trying to arrange a meeting time every week in which we can discuss and solve all the problems of the world.. at least from our perspective.
Good job Wes!

A time for everything...

I haven't been blogging as much lately. Mainly because most of my thoughts are going into my private journal and the stuff going on in my head wasn't for public consumption.
Here is what I want to say...
It is time for me now to move on.
Yes, after spending the last 23 years of my life working with high school students, it in now time for the sun to set on that part of my career (I started working at Son City playing in the band in October of 1985, first song I played was "Never" by Heart). I am a little saddened to be leaving the student ministry at Calvary but very excited about what I am going to do next. I am not leaving Muscatine or Calvary, just slowly transitioning to another position in the church.
Here is the email I sent out to many on my team yesterday:

This email is also to inform you of some impending transitions in our ministry coming in the near future. The church (Calvary) and I have been talking for a while about the next phase of my ministry life and what exactly that means. I guess what I am getting at is that we are going to start the process of phasing me out as the high school pastor at Calvary. This is a decision that has been made by both the church and myself which brings sadness and excitement for my life and hopefully the life of Nexus. Calvary has asked me to take the lead at our “3rd base” position in the church, helping people get involved in ministry. I think all of you know how much I love helping people get involved in ministry, so this seems like a perfect fit. This transition will not happen overnight, so for the time being you probably won’t notice anything different, however, subtle differences will probably be noticed in the amount of time I spend with Nexus. I am anticipating being involved with Nexus for at least the 2007-8 school year, but beyond that, I think it is unlikely that I will be directly involved. Understand that I will probably always be aware in some way of what goes on in Student Ministry, just not at the level I am now.

I know this may be creating some questions for you like: who will the next high school pastor be? Is Ernie going to step in? Will Scott now grow his hair out? Unfortunately, these are questions that have been asked but not answered. I am not keeping you in the dark, we (church management team) just haven’t discussed these issues at any length. I will keep you informed as everything transpires.

If you have any questions, please ask ME. No speculations need to happen as this is a natural part of ministry life. Like I said, I doubt you will notice any difference initially. We will have a great time together at Xcursion (hint, hint) and spending our summer together, planning on getting back into the swing of our fall schedules. After that.. who knows.

Again, if you have questions, please ask. This is not confidential information.

This has been brewing for some time and people would like to have some solid reasons why. Here are a few:

1. I am going to be 42 years old in September. (nuff said)
2. I have spent considerable time developing strategies for ministry in my head. The strategy we use at Calvary is something I heavily developed (and as a staff we refined), I want to expand my capabilities to the whole church and not keep them just in student ministries. In other words, I don't want to be defined as just a Youth Pastor (and I know I am not, but it is time to move on...)
3. My kids. As they get older, their extracurricular schedule begins to conflict with the schedule of my high schooler's. Given the choice between my daughters band concert and a high school baseball game, I will choose the concert. In some ways I don't think that is fair to my high school students.
4. My kids, part II. I never wanted to be my kids youth pastor. Sadie loves me being the youth pastor because of the special privilege she gets. However when I broke the news to her, I reminded her that her friends at times complain about how ministry is. I told her that I didn't want to put her in a position where it is her dad they are complaining about. I don't know if her and Emma's heart could take it.
5. Its time.

Now this isn't a conclusive list, but simply things I have been mulling over for a few years (yes years) now. I look forward to this coming year and the ways in which God will use me to help more people get involved in ministry. I love seeing people find their potential by building into the kingdom and connecting others with God.

Now is the time....