Carry Me

"I have cared for you since you were born.
Yes, I carried you before you were born.
I will be your God throughout your lifetime— until your hair is white with age.
I made you, and I will care for you.
I will carry you along and save you."

Isaiah 46:3-4 NLT

After several weeks of working pretty much flat out, I've begun to feel a little weary and discouraged. But the Lord reminded me today that He has sustained me for my entire life - through all sorts of good and bad experiences. He has been my strength through it all - and He will continue to carry me through my whole life, until I take my very last breath.

It is He, no one else and nothing else, who sustains me. He is like my food and drink; He is my confidence, my inspiration, my faith, my courage. I pray that I will be able to follow the example of Jesus, who kept persevering, even on the cross. Diligence is an important ingredient for fruitfulness.

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9 TNIV).

Momentum

This week I met with the local youth leaders, and (I praise God for this), out of that grew a local youth leaders' group. We are going to meet regularly to pray and encourage each other, and are considering a range of possibilities including combined events, networking with other parachurch organisations, and having a regular prayer newsletter for local youth ministries.

I have been so encouraged by the unity that God has given us, and by all that is beginning to happen. Thank you God - I begin to sense the momentum that comes when the Holy Spirit breathes on our efforts as we seek God and obey His direction.

God is great!

Let Him Flow

"Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them."

John 7:38 TNIV

Last Saturday I went to a worship workshop. I got so much out of it particularly from one discussion we had about this Scripture.

So often we try to strive to make things happen - but the speaker was saying we just need to let God flow through us. We need to get rid of stuff in our lives that block the flow of the Spirit through us - for example, bitterness, fear, and so on, and just allow Him to do what He wants through us.

Sounds so much easier than trying to make it happen myself!

Connect

"How Good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity!".

Psalm 133:1

I once heard Rob Bradbury from PlanetShakers say that unity is the Holy Spirit's favourite cologne. The Holy Spirit is attracted to the sweet smell of God's children being united as one, and so when he smells unity, He comes and pours His blessing on them.

That's not a bad picture of the manifold benefit there is in living in harmony with other Christians, but not only that, actively working together in unity, encouraging each other, building one another up, spurring one another on to do good things.

This week I've been working on connecting with Christians in other churches. I had a very encouraging discussion last night with one of the other local youth leaders - she is such a nice person and we had a lot in common, since both of us have just taken up our roles, both have just moved to this town, and both have relatively small youth groups to begin with. We intend to gather the local youth leaders for a prayer & encouragement meeting within the next couple of weeks.

I have also managed to contact the leader of the Christian group at the nearby university. I'll be visiting them some time soon to meet them and see what they do, and to see if there's any way we can support them.

Thank you Lord, for placing others around me, that we can support each other, and work together to see great things happen in this city. I thank you that love comes from you; and you have poured your love into our hearts so that we can share that super-natural love with others. Let nothing divide us, Lord; let nothing hold us back from doing the great things you have called us to do.

Unstoppable

"For the Lord Almighty has purposed,
and who can thwart him?"

Isaiah 14:27

I thank God that no-one can stop what He has planned; least of all me.

Things have been a little tough in the past week; various challenges and loneliness have threatened to shut me down. Yet while I was floundering, God was at work, as he picked me up and set me back on the course He has for me. I am so thankful that I serve the God who gives up on nobody; who in all things works for the good of those who love Him.

The Battle Lines Are Drawn

Now that things are beginning to happen with our youth ministry, I am beginning to see just what sort of battle we will have here. It seems that there are a lot of people who have been hurt and/or alienated from the Church. Sadly, many of these have found ways to go on with their lives, perhaps still having some belief in God, but being separated from the bigger family of God.

Along with that, I think there is a reluctance in some people to trust the Church again, or perhaps a reluctance to commit themselves once again for fear of being hurt. I am also dealing with a whole generation of young people for whom church has seemed irrelevant. Gathering these young people together is going to be (and has already proved) a challenge. I will have to ask God how to care for these people in the best way; how to help them to seek Him for healing from all of their wounds, emotionally, spiritually.

It is just as well I'm not doing this on my own. I'm serving a great big God. He is leading me as to how to go about this task, and He will give me the strength and courage to complete what He has called me to do. Bit by bit, day by day, this vision He has given me will come to pass. And I'll be gladly able to say, in perhaps twelve months time or later, that God alone has done it, because I could never do it on my own.

The Process

We have been here for nearly three weeks now, and it is beginning to feel like home. How do I know I've settled in? Because I visited my old town last week (it was good to see my friends again), but when I came back here it felt like coming home. And now that we have a couch to sit on (was delivered yesterday), I can finally relax.

And yet, I have so much work to do! For some reason, I thought that starting in a new town would entail a few weeks (at least) of not too many commitments. But I was wrong! Starting up a new youth ministry sure takes a lot of hard work. But I'm enjoying every minute of it.

I thought it would be good to record what I'm doing in the process of getting this thing set up - so that at least I (and perhaps you) can look back if we ever wish to know once more what is involved in starting a youth ministry from scratch. The process I've basically followed so far has first of all involved seeking God absolutely every day as to what He wants me to do. I will not do this task on my own understanding or strength; I must hear the voice of God, otherwise I will simply slip back into doing what I have always done, from what I already know (which would be bad).

As I have sought to hear from God and obey Him, I have been working on gathering together some young people from a list of contacts my pastor gave me. The list is about fifteen people long; I have discovered that probably about ten of those are actually solid contacts. I think it is a good number to begin with.

I organised a couple of low-stress social events during February and March - we had a coffee night at a local cafe the week after I came, and will go Go-Karting in a few weeks' time. Apart from these, a few combined-churches events are happening that I will encourage the young people to be a part of. This Friday we will start up a youth home group which will facilitate fellowship, discipleship and outreach. In all of this, I hope to see unity and vision grow within the group, and to see the young people become more committed to their local church. My focus for the moment is on mentoring and discipling this group, from which will emerge future youth leaders, and from which we will begin to outreach into the community.

Importantly, in the last week I took the time to write out our vision for the youth ministry, and to present this to the church leaders. I have a 2-3 page document that details our specific goals and direction, and will be a great basis for me to work from as we begin to set the culture of the group and begin to form partnerships with others in fulfilling our vision.

It's all very exciting - God is beginning to draw people together and into the church, and I know that great things are going to happen in the future. Importantly, I remind myself and others that God is going to do amazing things, that peoples' lives will be changed, and that we must not limit our vision to our own understanding. We serve a great big God, who loves us, and desires to do great things through us. And He will!