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MESSY MINISTRY
Another article posted to Simply Youth Minstry's site today. I wrote it about a month ago in the middle of a time when life in ministry was causing me to find myself in a serious state of disarray.
We had taken into our home a former teen from one of my small groups who had hit some very tough roads. His life started kinda tough by being basically abandoned by his drug addicted parents when he was 8. Since then, he had been into drugs, alcohol, and women and then had his whole life turned upside down with a major tragedy several months ago that left him suicidal and confused. This eventually led to him being kicked out one night in a fight with his relatives and he called my cell with nowhere to go. Shannon and I took him in and he lived with us for the next 6 weeks before he left, in a rather messy state, with a lot of unfinished work to be done. As much as I wanted to help him "clean up his life", it is a messy process to help people. Messy for me. Messy for them. Messy.
He was- and still is- knee deep in rebuilding his life spiritually, emotionally, mentally, relationally, physically, and every other kind of "ally" you can think of. This meant helping him do everything from file his taxes, learn to do laundry, get a job, fix some stuff with the court and get a drivers license, get some clothes, open a bank account, get a counselor, get a car and a bike, clean up his myspace, and a bunch of other stuff.
But it was messy.
So in the middle of that time, I wrote this article which posted today.
SIDE NOTE: it's been interesting writing these articles cuz a professional editor reads them and "fixes them". So every time one posts to the internet, I pull up my "original article" to see what was changed and what mess I made he had to fix. I hope I'm becoming a better writer because of it. I'm trying to learn to self correct so the editor gets to just say, "post it." He doesn't make a ton of writing changes as it is, but some have more than others.
We had taken into our home a former teen from one of my small groups who had hit some very tough roads. His life started kinda tough by being basically abandoned by his drug addicted parents when he was 8. Since then, he had been into drugs, alcohol, and women and then had his whole life turned upside down with a major tragedy several months ago that left him suicidal and confused. This eventually led to him being kicked out one night in a fight with his relatives and he called my cell with nowhere to go. Shannon and I took him in and he lived with us for the next 6 weeks before he left, in a rather messy state, with a lot of unfinished work to be done. As much as I wanted to help him "clean up his life", it is a messy process to help people. Messy for me. Messy for them. Messy.
He was- and still is- knee deep in rebuilding his life spiritually, emotionally, mentally, relationally, physically, and every other kind of "ally" you can think of. This meant helping him do everything from file his taxes, learn to do laundry, get a job, fix some stuff with the court and get a drivers license, get some clothes, open a bank account, get a counselor, get a car and a bike, clean up his myspace, and a bunch of other stuff.
But it was messy.
So in the middle of that time, I wrote this article which posted today.
SIDE NOTE: it's been interesting writing these articles cuz a professional editor reads them and "fixes them". So every time one posts to the internet, I pull up my "original article" to see what was changed and what mess I made he had to fix. I hope I'm becoming a better writer because of it. I'm trying to learn to self correct so the editor gets to just say, "post it." He doesn't make a ton of writing changes as it is, but some have more than others.
1 comments:
Well, what you did w/that student was real life discipleship...which, as Jesus knows from his Judas experience, doesn't always clean up well (kinda like a frumpy guy in a tuxedo - looks good, but not). Anyway, loved the article; thanks for the reminders of what ministry does and should occasionally look like.
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