Old photo's and trips down memory lane

The church that I work at has always been my home church. I have many fond memories of being a youth here. Now that I am the youth leader I hope to be able to give other youth many fond memories of being here too. Today I sat peeling old photo's off an old home made poster giving me a chance to reflect on my career with youth ministry at this church. From being a youth, to a youth volunteer, to being their leader. So many good memories along the way like the youth leader who would even unscrew the emergency lights to make things even darker as we ran around the church. That was the same leader that thought he would see how quickly he could go from downtown to our church. The passenger next to me almost peed in the seat. I would not have been thrilled with that. To the leader that played a lot of pull-a-part. Why any leader thought that having all the boys/girls sit on the floor, link up and then have the opposite gender pull them apart was a good thing is beyond me but I played that a lot as a youth. Then there was the time we had pew races in the church and youth group in the columbarium (a place where peoples ashes are put into the wall with a plaque). From wrapping people in plastic wrap to shooting nerf guns I have been a part of a lot here.

One of the things that I started thinking about was my missed opportunities. The last two times a youth leader left neither one seemed to have the faith that I could be the leader. They wanted my help but did not really look at what I could do. They let my easy going, willing to be the gopher side of me be all they saw. The first time I allowed it. I let the opportunity to be the leader pass me by. The second time I decided I was not going to let it pass me by. Whether or not the youth leader at the time believed I could do it I was not going to miss my chance. I am so happy that I went for it. While it has been one of the hardest years I have had at the same time it has been one of the most rewarding. Thank you to all of my friends and family that have been supporting me and are continuing to support me.

They drove me to a massage

One thing that I have not done is gotten a massage until today. With all of the stress going on at work I thought it was time to get the kinks worked out of me. It was a wonderful thing. 50 minutes of complete relaxation. So I may have never had a massage before but I am hooked. I already know that after the HS mission trip I am so going in for another one.

Trials and tribulations of being a church

One of the things that my church had been offering was free wi-fi. We have many different groups that come and use our church for the purpose of business type meetings so it was very nice for them to have the wi-fi use. Then the other day the cops came in and informed us that someone was sitting in their car searching for porn using our wi-fi. Yep you read that correctly someone thought a church was a great place to search for porn. So then this week the plot thickens. For whatever reason the news thought they needed to do a story on this. Not sure why they thought it was news worthy but they did. Unfortunately for us even though we said we have no comment, do not want to be filmed, do not want the kids from VBS filmed, the news station decided to film our church, film the kids from VBS, and make it really obvious what church it was. The worse part about it was they stood across the street doing this making sure they were not on our property the whole time they were filming. Churches are supposed to be a safe place and yet thanks to this wonderful news station people are starting to question that. Oh the joys of working at a church.

Chinese food and Chocolate

Tonight I got to have chinese food and chocolate. It was a great evening where I got to hang out with Becky (my biggest parent support) and she had bought me chocolate for dog sitting. The chocolate was amazing. She got it from a nice shop in downtown Salem. So after having Chinese food I got to settling into my night and eat my chocolate. I got to tell you I felt more than a little spoiled.

With the Family Gone

My Family is currently gone on our annual camping trip. I chose to stay behind. With staying behind I had only one request from my parents, "please water our plants!" That is it. Their only request. And so what do I do? I forget to water the plants for 5 days. 5 count them 5 days!!! And it is not like one or two plants that are out of the way so it is easy to forget. No the entire yard is coated in plants. You cannot miss them. And here I was in lala land ignoring the plants. So guess what I did with my evening? I watered the plants. *sigh* I do not think I killed to many plants.

People never cease to amaze me

Working at a church you come across all sorts of interesting things. Both good and bad. One thing we do is collect money for a food bank. Today as we had staff meeting a note was passed around that had been put into our collection plate. It stated that marion county has a high obesity rate according to the statesman journal. The note was passed to make us chuckle but I found myself being more upset by their implications of the note than anything. Who puts notes like that in collection plates??? Well obviously they did but did they really think we were going to stop supporting the food bank?

Texting in Church

When I was growing up cell phones were not a part of our daily lives. If you needed to make a call you either had to find a pay phone or hope someone had a land line willing to let you use. These days it is harder to find a pay phone or a land line someone is willing to let you use than a cell phone. And anyone who has a teenager or simply works with one knows how often they use their cell phone. They can be seen anywhere with a cell phone in their hand texting someone. Even someone in the same room! As I became a youth leader I noticed that my texting use increased by a lot. Somedays I feel like maybe I am texting more than calling or having that face to face conversation. But I think the point that I realized I was crossing over to the world of to much texting is when I got a text in the middle of church and sat in the back pew texting back. Hmmm... Maybe I should put the phone down and walk away. Just because my neighbor in the pew is texting doesn't mean I need to be.