It's been a while

SO I seem to have taken a bit of a Hiatus from blogging. I have no intentions of quitting, so where did I go you may ask?

I have taken a bit of a break in order to focus on my ministry and a few other projects. Over the past month and a half I have hired an intern, run a retreat for my grade 8-10's and started working towards my Masters in Seminary. It has been crazy but a lot has been coming out of it (hopefully I will slowly catch up with the blogging)

Today I submitted my first assignment on my long journey towards my masters. It is a basic class for Seminary students, but has demanded much of my time otherwise.

But to the ministry- how have I been focusing on it.

Well first of all I have decided to hire an intern. She has been great, but it has added a workload of its own to the mix. I am hopefully pouring into her to train her to be a better person, and to thrive in her future workplace.

Secondly, I have spent a few weeks prepping for the next school year. While I have my summer planned out, I am working towards planning out the school year: events, speaking, retreats the whole 9 yards. This is my first year of doing everything a year ahead, which means like anything that you do for the first time it took me a while. I had a bank of events and topics to talk on, but I wanted to orchestrate them to maximize the impact of our ministry. Its a big deal and I have been convicted that I need to be a better steward with my time and my effectiveness. Not that I wasn't effective, there are just areas that need to be improved upon.

Thats my update for now, I hope to jump into writing more ministry blogs ASAP. Until then GOD BLESS

Seminary High

Do you ever get a camp or retreat high?

It feels so good, you feel excited about God, excited about your life, excited about your friends! So many people have experienced, some sort of high. And what do we do when we come down from that high. Well we try to figure out how to get high again. It works for everything from our faith experiences to drugs.

Right now I am on a seminary high. I haven't even started yet, but I am applying to go to ACTS Seminary this fall. I will continue doing my full-time ministry, but be taking one class a semester by distance education. It will be a slow process and likely a very painful one at times. So why am I saying I am on a seminary high?

Right now I am pumped for school, I am excited that I get to go learn more about God, His word and how to teach it. I am pumped about the opportunity to grow closer to him, and to learn how to teach others to grow closer to him better.

My job, my passion, my commitment is to teach students how to walk with Christ, and do well along their Journey. The thing is, if we aren't learning more along the way, we can become stagnant. Its really easy to pour everything out but not put anything back in. I am looking to seminary as a place to pour into my life. I know that taking some classes won't be easy, some will be downright difficult and I will probably question my motives for going back to class. But, if I persevere I know God will reward me by filling me up and taking me further along my journey towards him.

As pastors I hope we take a break, for some of us we don't have the opportunity to go back to school, but we can take a course, go to an awesome conference. (Maybe next year you can hit up the National youth workers conference, or the Simply youth ministry conference.) If that's still too steep don't be afraid to read the blogs of others.

Just remember if you pour everything out, you might find yourself being empty. Take some time and fill yourself up.