Tonight's lesson will be on Psalm 118.
Its a great Psalm, and if you have not read it, go ahead and read it now.
Go on, We will wait. . .

The language of praise and joy cannot be missed! It is obvious that the writer is thrilled to be praising God, in spite of being chastised, they are still Happy!
There are the obvious things to learn, such as rejoice in the Lord Always!
But there are other things as well.
God's love endures forever, there is no beginning, no end, it is, like God, eternal. Isn't that a comforting thought? Isn't that reassuring? So many things in our life are temporary at best. We live in a disposable society, to the point that we at times treat one another as disposable. And YET, and yet God's love endures forever!
God is to be our refuge. Our youth group calls itself the asylum, in part because of the verse in Galatians (if we are out of our minds it is for the sake of God.) but also because of the fact that asylum means a place of refuge, and God is to be our refuge, our ever present help in times of trial.
Even though we have been chastised, told we have done wrong, God still opens the gate of the righteous for us. He still offers us salvation, resurrection, restoration of relationships!
Rejoice for we have been made free!
Rejoice for we have been made whole!
Rejoice in the Lord!

Youth ministry- knitting w/o a pattern

I've been thinking today that youth ministry is a lot like knitting. I've recently been trying to teach myself, with the help of YouTube, to knit cables. The steps don't look to complicated until you try them and learn that for whatever reason, your fingers just don't bend that way.

So it is with youth ministry. There are so many things that look easy, but are painstakingly difficult. Knitting is easier, because you can start over if you mess up, and there is a pattern!
With youth ministry, once you mess up you rarely get a "do-over" and there is never an agreed upon pattern. One person thinks you should have stars while the other thinks a row of chains would be nice, while still others think "knitting? Crochet is the ONLY way." (sigh)

I'm reading "Sustainable Youth Ministry" by Mark DeVries and it's pretty good, but I'm at a point of feeling overwhelmed. (Probably should have skipped to chapter 12 until I get calm as was suggested.) I find myself like so many of the youth workers mentioned, doing "tasks" not really doing ministry. (double sigh) So much to do, and it's all on you! But thankfully it's not all on me, there are some GREAT volunteers here who are doing wonderful things. Now I just have to get my act together to organize and we will be on the right track. God is good all the time! All the time, God is good!