The Curious Ministry of an Unlikely Leader

On November 8, my stomach was in knots as I watched the election results. I was shocked and surprised. I watched the numbers flip flop so many times in just a single state. It was close. Too close. On November 9, I woke up and found out the new president-elect. I was surprised. I was also deeply disappointed. I had listened to some of the things Trump had said. The hateful words that were said on the campaign trail horrified me. About the same time, I had heard about his acceptance speech. I heard that it was tactful, almost graceful, that missing from it was all of the hateful things he had said for over a year. November 9, I also had to wake up really early and get on a plane. I was scared, not of the plane ride - those are nothing to me at this point. The election results scared me. Not because Trump was elected. But because so many people had voted for him - either because of the hate-filled things he said, or in spite of them. So, as I contemplated what this meant for our

I have a quote sticker on my Kindle case. I actually have a couple, but the one I've been seeing the most lately is this one: It's a great thought. We all know that the caterpillar cocoons itself and turns into a butterfly. But there's so much more to it. I used to think this was referring to just simply building its cocoon and sitting there almost completely still for several days. I didn't realize the depth of this proverb until I recently learned of how the metamorphosis process actually works. It all starts with an egg. The egg hatches to a larva, which grows into a caterpillar. Within just two weeks, the caterpillar sheds its skin five times, it literally outgrows five skins.This whole time, it is consuming every bit of food it can. It then finds a safe place to form its chrysalis. Once inside the cocoon, the caterpillar nearly completely liquefies .  So, quite literally, the caterpillar thinks the world is over. Its life is complete. And that's gott

One thing that's been catching my eye in worship lately has been just how many hidden crosses there are in just the sanctuary. I want to know how many crosses the youth see in the worship space. I want them to look beyond the purposeful and obvious crosses. After we tally the crosses we've spotted, we would head to the youth room. Once we are settled in the room, the first question I have for the youth is "What does it mean that there we found more crosses when we started to look for them?" I plan to focus on how Jesus can be found in the unexpected places. My second question for the youth is "Who is Jesus?" Have them write their answers, so no one is influenced by others' answers. Each youth will then open their Bible to Matthew 25:34-40 . I will have two volunteers read all the way through - one after the other. More questions for the youth: Who is hungry near you? How can you feed them? Is it possible someone is spiritually hungry

What does that phrase mean? I've heard a lot of interpretations. One is that we, as Christians, should shy away from any and all influences of this world. We should not listen to any non-Christian music, we should not watch TV shows that do not have a "redeeming" purpose, and so on. While this is a worthy idea, it's not exactly sustainable. It also does not give us the ability to be "in this world" and instead creates a wall between Christians and "the world." This divides us from all others. If we are divided, separated, from the rest of the world, how can we possibly serve it? I've recently come to believe that "in the world, not of it" has a much deeper meaning than simply avoiding the sinful influences of the world. The world, especially now, will have us believe that we are in constant danger. There is a continual bombardment of messages telling us how bad the world is now. We are told that Muslims are the enemy. Immigrants are

It's been a bit since I've posted. Last week, I was away from the youth group for Princeton Seminary's Institute of Youth Ministry's annual forum. I got to hear from some amazing, brilliant people who really have a heart and understanding for youth ministry. I'm still processing it all! That will be another post, though. The week before, the youth had a jam-packed Wonderful Wednesday. It was our turn for clean-up after the meal. I didn't realize it would take quite as long as it did. That's one of my shortcomings - judging the amount of time it will take to do anything. I'd be chronically late to new places if it weren't for GPS telling me exactly how long it will take me to drive! I digress. We cleaned every pot, pan, knife, and spoon in the kitchen, as well as the tables and anything else we could get our hands on! I say we ... Really, the youth did most of the work.  Photo source: Cliparts After all of that cleaning, we played with the

Our discussion last week wrapped up with talking about responsibilities and priorities. This seems like a fitting place to start this week's discussion. My plan is to have an opening game, a lesson game, and then a discussion based on what causes stress, what each of us can do to relieve or prevent some stress, and what the Bible says about priorities. For the opening game, I got a beach ball from the Dollar Tree and wrote the numbers 1-100 on it. I have a list of 100 questions to go with each number. I'll toss the ball to one youth. They must then tell me the number under their right or left thumb. I will ask them the corresponding question, and then they answer. Some questions are of the "getting to know you" type, others are questions about being Lutheran, being Christian, or based on what is found in the Bible. I figure each student will go once, maybe twice depending on time. Once that's wrapped up, I'm using an idea I got from the website Ministr

We had a good time chatting. We didn't always stay on-topic, but that's okay! We started with a game of "switch sides if..." It's a pretty simple game. The youth pick a wall from two opposite walls. The leader reads out a statement, such as "Switch sides if you prefer cake over pie." If you like cake better, you walk to the other side of the room. If you like pie better, you stay where you are. After each statement, those who moved talked about why they moved. We learned quite a bit about each other, and had fun, to boot.  One of our congregation's members is very sick and has been in the hospital for several weeks, and will continue to be there for at least another few weeks. The youth spent time creating cards for her. They are also sponsoring a card shower for the congregation to participate in, as well. The youth will be collecting cards next week to be delivered along with the ones they made. I didn't take pictures of the card-ma

I found a nice, neat, survey for the teens to fill out my first week as the leader. It asked them, among other things, about their preferred topics to talk about in an upcoming Wednesday night Bible study. The most popular one got a vote from every student, except one. That was "making and keeping friends."  Now I'm sitting here thinking "what have I gotten myself into?" I feel wholly unqualified to teach this! I just moved here about 8 months ago, and I have yet to do that whole "making friends" thing. Not the way I think of friends. But maybe I just need to re-think what a friend is.  That's where I'm going to start with the teens.  *Ask them what makes a friend.  *Do they have to be close enough to run out for a lunch when the need or mood strikes?  *Are the people we keep in contact with through social media, text and phone calls "real" friends?  *Do we need friends who aren't separated from us by miles and miles

This one goes in the books as a "must do again"! We had a lot of fun, especially for something that got thrown together last-minute. For this year's party (which was actually more of a hang out), I bought the following: 25 clear plastic party cups (5 ounces) 1,000 toothpicks (I thought it said 100 - oops!) 100 vinyl non-powdered gloves 5 dozen eggs 1 gallon of vinegar (this was entirely too much!) 2 boxes of regular, assorted food dye 1 box of Neon food dye (We need at least 2 boxes) 1 party size bag chips 4.5 dozen cookies plastic tarp/sheeting plastic tablecloth shaving cream crayons gemstone stickers I found a chart for a lot of different colors you could make with food dye plus water & vinegar. I printed that out and one of the teens happily took charge of counting out the 20 or more drops of dye for each color. These produced wonderfully vibrant colors on the eggs. I showed the youth how to draw on the eggs with crayon which would le

Hello!! Glad to have you here. Let me tell you a bit about myself. I am currently volunteering as the interim youth director at my local congregation. Their previous director had to leave unexpectedly due to family illness. I had been working with the youth group as a student previously, and began leading them at the beginning of March, 2016. I was youth director at my previous congregation for 3 years. We'll see where all of that takes me in the coming weeks. I am part of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). I received my seminary degree in 2012 in diaconal ministry from LTSS (Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary). I have 5 units of CPE (clinical pastoral education), and therefore I am considered a clinically certified chaplain. I am currently working on obtaining a certificate in Youth and Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. Enough about me - what about the blog? That's the main reason you're here! My vision for this blog is to share my