I just spent the last week with a bunch of junior highers up at camp! Why was a children's pastor working at Jr. Teen camp? Well, here are your options (the snappy comebacks I came up with!):
a. I was trying to bond with them so that I could convince them to be on my puppet team!
b. Our youth pastor told me she wouldn't be my friend anymore and would beat me up if I didn't come with her.
c. Our YP and my DH twisted my arm and said that I needed to get away from the stress that is our church and meet with Jesus, or I wouldn't be any good for my kids' crusade next week!
d. I wanted to.
The answers, of course, are c and d! And I am happy I went. The first night at the altar, I felt God speak to me regarding the situation with CA, "I'm your dad, and I'm sick of all my kids being picked on. I'm going to take care of it for you." He reminded me that forgiveness does not mean excusing someone's bad behavior - it's letting Him take care of the situation and not doing it myself! I was so full of anger and hurt over this woman - our YP (my dearest friend in the world!) reminded me that I could be in danger of losing my anointing if I gave in to the anger. We are still covenanting to pray together about the situation, but in a different spirit than we had started out...This woman still needs to be stopped, but God is much better at deciding how it needs to happen than I am!
It was amazing to just spend a week with a single focus - ministering to kids. I am sore from all the injuries I incurred...getting hit square in the neck with a frisbee, being passed over a group of tiny junior highers on a mattress, scraping up my knee in the mud pit ("mud wars" are a fine teen camp tradition in our district!)...and I am still pretty exhausted, but happy.
I spent a lot of time praying for kids, and a lot of time God just pulled me away and said, "Not now...we're going to spend some time together first." I got to talk to a friend from my old youth group who is now working as a youth pastor, and I got to see one of our kids (who was a 6th grader when I first came to the church!) absolutely glow because God called him to the ministry while he was there.
Now I'm back, and CA is just as antagonistic as ever - she was one of our drivers to and from camp, because her grandkids went and she has a minivan - YP rode in her van and got to hear all the way there and all the way back (about 2.5 hours each way!) everything that was wrong with the church. Nothing about DH and me this time - I think she's starting to figure out that you just don't rip a member of the pastoral staff to another member, because we (gasp!) will a.) call her on it, and b.) go to the SP if it continues. But, in the words of the theme song at camp,
"God above the world in motion...God above all my hopes and fears...and I don't care what the world throws at me now...It's gonna be alright...'cause I know my God saved the day, and I know His word never fails, and I know my God made a way for me...Salvation is here!"
