The Price of Admission

Hi guys, Since I was quiet during the "share your calling and apostolic passion" talks, and since I told Megan and Craig tonight at church that I would go back to my own blog and paste in some old post about my my passion and calling, here it is as promised. Nothing earth shattering, I'm sure, and since you guys seem to know me pretty well, I think it will just confirm what you know. But here you! Have fun!
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(written on January 12)
This doesn't really make me a nerd, but there are moments when I really, really like my job. I've spent most of today getting my information together for the Nicaragua Parents' Meeting on Sunday...which isn't really about getting the information together for a Parents' meeting, it's about planning a mission trip for students. I can't believe I get paid to do this. I feel the same thing when summer camp rolls around, or any number of things where I feel like I'm equipping students to fulfill the call of God for ministry. I've known for a long time that's part of my actual calling - equipping the saints for the work of the ministry (I know, I know...I should go be a pastor or something like that)... It's why I know that I don't have to just be a youth pastor or just be this or that. MY calling extends to whatever allows me to equip people for the work of the ministry - and on days like today - I'm having fun because I'm doing just that. :-)

(written on Feb. 1)
But then as I continued to pray last night, I also felt like He was saying to me, "Your time working at the church will be shorter than you expected." And as I prayed, asking "WHY!?" he spoke more clearly the last part of the verse, "continuing on as I was when I was first called." The calling I have is to equip believers to reach the unchurched; the gifting I have is to do that by starting new ministries; and the skills I have allow me to bring order to chaos. My passion is for young people and for people who have never heard the gospel or for new churches. Does that have to be in another country? It could be. Does that have to be here in the US? It can be. That's the freedom of my particular calling. I just know what my calling is, and that in the past, my vocation has allowed me to work out my calling, gifting and skills even though the positions have looked very different from one another.

(written on Feb. 4)
OH...and I was just poking around again on the Navigators website...Like I told Craig and the crew on the AV blog, my problem is that I have no passion for areas outside the 10/40 window. Literally, I don't even look at those opportunities because I know the need to be greatest in the window. Could there possibly be a way to squish together everything that I want to do into ONE job?! I was talking with Devan yesterday about missions and she said, "I was just wondering when missions when come back into play in your own life, and I always figured it would be when you had to take your youth group on a mission trip. The passion you displayed when you were neck deep in it back then, I knew that hadn't gone away." But that doesn't mean that all of the other stuff I'm about just goes away either... I'm still going to be about youth, technology and communication in the church, leadership development, new church development and ministries, equipping believers to do the work of the ministry themselves; teaching new believers... These things aren't going to just go away because I'm rediscovering a passion for missions. (Maybe rediscovering isn't even the right word...it's more like coming to a place where that passion has space to breathe again. My first church did missions, but in an old school way - they just threw $ at it. East Lake didn't at all.) Sigh... This is part of Tom's series that kicked my butt. The "desire" part. I have a plain "desire" for all of my passions to come together in one, and maybe, God wants for those desires to come together, too, "if I delight myself in the Lord." I find myself delighting in God LOTS these days - He's such a good God and has such grace for my shortcomings and goofs...(I mean that statement to have much more theological depth than I'm writing it with). He deserves my delight.