Stuff going on

OK, back in the saddle of "normalcy" again. I had a good time with the three teens that actually made it with me to the Leadership Conference. The conference was not what i thought, but it was good and challenging. There were about 65 or 70 teens there and everyday was full of mostly services and leadership stuff. The speaker, Paul Whitt, was very good and the kids really liked the leadership training. If we go next year, I definitely want more kids to be able to go, but it's not a good thing to force them to go as some other schools made the juniors and seniors go and you could tell they did not really want to be there except for the fact of missing school for 3 days.
Some sad news; it sounds like my grandpa up in Michigan will not make it too much longer. I'm trying to decide when I should go up, before he goes or just for the funeral. This will be the closest family death I've had to deal with in my life. Makes me think of the uncertainty of life.
It also looks as if I'll end up being the school's athletic director. I'm not sure that I'm thrilled about that as there are a couple people who are definitely more qualified than me, but they don't want to or can't do it, and this would be another new experience for me to tackle. We'll see. It will definitely have its challenges as I'm finding out more and more about what all entails the athletic program and the history of our playing certain other schools.
Looking forward to a Saturday to mostly relax. The rest of November should be pretty busy with youth ministry stuff and school stuff. And Thanksgiving and the holiday season are almost here too. Look out.

Stuff going on

OK, so I'm really excited because I finally get to go out of town somewhere. I wish my wife could go with me but there's the whole "kids and teaching" thing. oh well. Tomorrow after lunch I'm taking three students to the Student Leadership Conference in central WV. We'll be there until Thursday morning. I started with about 15 interested kids, then went to 7 who wanted to go, then down to 5 signed up and now because of sickness and other stuff I have three. We'll see when I pull out of the church parking lot tomorrow if I still have three going. Here's hoping. I'm trying not to be negative because I originally planned this to be a side trip thing for the Next Step class. Then I found out none of the public school kids can miss any days and most of the Christian school kids couldn't either or didn't have the money. I tried to make it more affordable for my youth ministry kids be paying for half of the cost if they were part of my youth group but that still didn't help much. But hey, God knows and i hope it's a great week for the teens who are going as well as for myself. Talk about changing the whole goal of an activity but as a youth pastor, I'm learning that comes with the territory.
Had fun at a party Saturday night. A family from the school who has 6 kids had a harvest party and invited pretty much all the Jr. and Sr. High students and teachers. I had fun running around with the kids and goofing off as well as playing with the bonfire. I know I was a pyromaniac in a previous life. Then today at church we were supposed to have a group from Northland Bible College be here in the evening, and they showed up for S.S. this morning. So my family and I took the six in the group out for Chinese after the morning service and then I came home and finished watching the new Indiana Jones movie because it had to be returned tonight. Then choir practice and the special service with the Northland group, and afterwards we had pizza and drinks and stuff while the teens hung out with the college kids. There were around 25 kids and I was glad to see a couple returning visitors and a couple kids come back that had missed a bunch of weeks. We played a game and then I just came home a little bit ago and packed for the trip.
I would like this week to be 1. a chance to get to know better the three teens who are going, 2. a good relaxing yet challenging retreat, 3. a time to challenge my ideas and info about leadership, 4. a challenging time for the teens, 5. the start to a closer walk with God in these teens lives and in turn, in this Christian school. I would really like to get some good, practical stuff to pass on to the Next Step kids. We'll see. God is in charge of my ministry and I need to trust Him to do what is best.