Doing what you are supposed to

Romans 12: 4-7.....If you should be doing something
you better do it

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship." -Romans 12:1

Have you ever felt like there was something that you were supposed to do but weren't?

Over the past year I have been sitting in a space feeling like there is something that I should be doing but wasn't... I have been on a long, emotional, tiring, stressful and exciting journey. It has put me and my family through the ringer but we know that God has given me some gifts which I haven't been using. We know that God has hardwired me with some ways of worship, which I have not been doing. I have also been learning that I am a creative. I may not be a creative with art but I am a creative with thoughts and words.

So I have found some things that I need to do it so I am going to do them. Here is my list-

5 Things I need to start or reincorporate into my life:

1) Putting God first: This is a never ending battle. Making sure that God is first in my life and making sure I invest in my time with Him. I need to give God the best of my time, not the leftovers.

2) Put my family second: Often times my work, my thoughts, my laziness, my distractions come between me and my family. That should never happen EVER. With Baby #2 due on May 5, I know that I need to spend some serious time refocusing and reorganizing my priorities to make sure I give my family the attention they need and deserve. I am slowly learning to put down my technology, leave work at work, and I hope I keep getting better at it.

3) Learning: One thing I am learning is that I need to a) read and to b) write. But I need to do these things in the best possible way.
a)I need to read things that will fill me up and inspire me, less Facebook and Buzzfeed articles.  I need more Bible, and books that will inspire my faith, leadership and creativity.
b) I need to write as an expression of who I am and what I am learning. I am an information junkie but I need to write to process what I take in, otherwise it is all for not.

4) Preaching/Teaching: I started in ministry know that I loved to see people come to faith and I longed to help them grow in their personal journey with God. What I have learned is that God has given me the gifts of preaching, creating and teaching. I need to live this beautiful gifting out, or I am throwing away what God gave me.

5)Living differently: There are two things I don't do enough of in my life.
1) Exercise! This is probably a common one for people like me, those of us who default to reading and love to eat. But I am learning that I am more bearable as a human being when I exercise. I also kind of like it when I do it. So I am challenging myself to do it a little more often, and hope it becomes a lot more often. Sure I could stand to lose a couple more pounds, but I could stand to gain a vibrancy of life even more.
2) Bring people into my life- It's really easy for me to have superficial relationships or just depend on the deep ones I already have, but I truly love people. I love talking to them, laughing with them and even just watching and studying them. I hope that this next stint of life I bring more beautiful people into my life.

Speaking to Seniors

Now you may think that because I am youth pastor this blog post will be about graduating students. But it is not. While I love speaking with high school students, they aren't always the most encouraging group. The group I spoke with this morning is however, I spoke with a group of individuals 65+.

Every wednesday morning from 1030-noon we have a group of seniors which come together to sing some hymns and hear a message. All the pastors on staff take turns preaching to this group throughout the year. I am always happy to preach but this group really makes it fun.

The first time I got up to preach I was blown away by the fact that the nearest person to my age that week was 50 years older than myself. I didn't know what to say, I thought I should be the one to be sitting and learning from the wisdom of those older than myself. But I got up shared my testimony and then began to preach from it. When I was done, I thought to myself how bad it went. Then everyone started sharing how that impacted them and what they learned from my story. I didn't bomb in their mind, they hadn't heard it all before but they really enjoyed it.

Over the few times I have spoken at Wednesday worship I have been corrected (by a guy who knows more about the Bible than me) I have been encouraged and I have had some good jokes pointed in my direction. But the best part is it is all from love.

By spending an hour every few months with my more mature friends I have begun to learn a lot about christian living, and I have got to hone my craft of preaching more. I never feel nervous in front of this group because even when I preach and things don't go as well as I hoped, the seniors always have a kind word of encouragement, a lot of insight and sometimes they even help me fine tune my thinking for when I teach a similar message in the future.

So I would encourage you, if you ever have the opportunity to speak at your 'Wednesday worship', take the chance and get to know these older people. They will love you, encourage you, pray for you, pray with you and will be good teachers and listeners. And it might surprise you but they will learn from you to (and as a preacher that always feels good).