You know something. I’m convinced that there are times in ministry that feel a lot like a brick wall being torn down with a jack hammer. I guess I’ve always known this. Especially, serving in youth ministry for such a long time I’ve been on both sides of the fence when it comes to the joys and the valleys of ministry. Brick by brick. The jack hammer knocks away and each brick comes crumbling down into bits of rubble. Each brick, a reminder of a lesson or two learned, the "I should of’s," and the joys of loving God’s people just as they are in the midst of their own brokenness and in the midst of the rubble of their own lives.

I have to be honest though in that the jack hammers of ministry hurt and you wonder what in the world is the Lord teaching and doing as you crumble down to the ground in bits of pieces, hoping the Lord is already rebuilding your soul and plotting out the next phase of your ministry, to give you greater strength to be able to love Christ’s church and to do what truly matters when it comes to following Jesus.

All I care about as a pastor is to somehow make Christ come alive and to help the church become a place where people are its mission. How do you do this though when people are to busy and wrapped up in their own stuff about church? How do you prepare and equip the people of God to do the kind of ministry that should always be happening? Loving people as Christ loved them? It’s easy though as a pastor to just say to those in the church, "forget it." You can’t and won’t change. You have one way of doing ministry and I have another. I can’t help but think Paul had similar frustrations when it comes to peoples motives behind what they do in they way they share God’s love.

Doing what really matters in spite of lifes circumstances? How do you do teach this? How do you do this effectivly without falling to the ground in pain over the way the body of Christ acts and represents Christ’ love? How do you get past the rubble and with joy grab the people of God around you for the ride of all rides without the jack hammers of ministry knocking everything to the ground?

I’m not ready. Will I ever be ready for our sixth grader who will enter the land of seventh grade in just a few months? middle school? Tonight, was registration for our oldest son. I’ve already planned what I will be doing on the first day he attends middle school. I will have a lawn chair with an ice box of something and I will just sit. Wait. And wonder how in the world my boy got to seventh grade and will remember with utter joy the days he’d jump on me and want me to play with 24-7. Thank God my wife went and was there to help with registration. How do you transition from the land of kid to the land of Jr. high pre-teen?