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uthpstr_Jlyn
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Name: Julie
Country: United States
Birthday: 7/11/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: Greek, acoustic guitarness, Macintosh, Micah, youth ministry, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Donald Miller, Polish food, euchre (the only card game worth knowing), flipping speed (thank you Jason), my family and The Ohio State Buckeyes.
Expertise: Tetris, cheeto anaologies in Scripture, the highly acclaimed "coal miner's pie", being a klutz, and multi-tasking every moment of the day.
Occupation: Life-long learner
Message: message me
Member Since:
2/6/2005
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| I had an interesting conversation today with Nolan (one of my bosses and a friend) about all that is wrong with youth ministry today... an interesting thought came up: I feel more free to minister as a volunteer youth sponsor than I did as a full-time paid youth pastor. Sure, it's possible some of this can be blamed on maturity or the hard lessons I have learned in the last few years, but still a stark difference remains--why? A few thoughts:
1. Youth sponsors (YS) are not directly accountable to the church board or students' parents or the senior pastor--just the youth pastor (YP).
2. YS do not bear the "responsibility" for the spiritual development of students the way a paid YP does in the minds of those who pay his/her salary.
3. YS can be flawed, while I felt as a YP that I had to have all the answers and know exactly what to do when and how (this part maturity has helped significantly).
4. YS usually is responsible for only a portion of one ministry, whereas a YP has a lot of other responsibilities in the church.
5. YS do not live in quite the fish-bowl world YP live in (where everyone watches and judges everything you do or say).
I miss full-time youth ministry, but I have never been one who deals well with expectations. I have high enough expectations for myself without anyone else adding to the pile. They would just weigh on me... why? All I want to do is follow Jesus... and for me that means ministry, but I just don't think I can handle being under that heavy weight again.
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| i miss school. every fall it hits hard as i watch students pack up for college, go school clothes shopping and finding the perfect supplies for their achievement throughout the year. i feel so stuck on the fringe of my dreams. like i can see them out there floating around somewhere but i cannot seem to reach out and grab them. my heart breaks as i look back over the summer and see how uninspired i stayed. amidst the chaos of my job, everything i want sat on a shelf. i'm so frustrated because i feel i am wasting time but i know i'm here because God put me here... i'm learning lessons, just not the ones i want to learn. i'm 25 now. seems "young" until you begin to think about how i've lived an estimated 1/3 of my life already. i feel like i have accomplished so little. i'm over ambitious, i know, but i really saw myself somewhere very different by now. i saw a family and a house and some important work. this will sound really prideful, but i thought i was destined for great things and i feel like i'm begging on the side of the road i should be traveling along in style. yet, a part of me never wants to be that person. i've been thinking about the peace corps. something i never dreamed of doing but lately i've been really interested. i also want to do more photography and writing. what's funny is the more i think and pray about it, the more it sounds like missions work which totally terrifies me. why am i so restless? why can't i just be one of those people who is content to blossom where they are planted?
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| i recently began "running" (by running i really mean an unbalanced mixture of 80%walking and 20%jogging--how's that for an 80/20 principle?) and by the end i always feel like my lungs are going to explode, so i stop. curious about the normalcy or prevention of this epidemic, i consulted some online articles concerning breathing tips for beginner runners. one article gave sound medical proof that the inability to finish a race has nothing to do with lung capacity, rather your cardio and metabolism. your lungs take in and process enough oxygen but not fast enough to keep up with the demands of intense/new muscle use. blood makes the oxygen move faster to breathe easier, not intaking more oxygen.
rather struck by this, i began to think of all the ways i gasp in life. how when things fall apart it doesn't require moving more, but greasing the wheels so moving more is possible without collapse. when i was youth pastoring in glen ullin, things fell apart toward the end. i didn't want them to and i desperately gasped for more independence, precision and adoration thinking my high-capacity pride would carry me through; i didn't have the prayer and God-perspective greasing the wheels, so it all fell apart. i wanted to walk away blaming everyone else or the circumstance, but in the end, it was my responsibility to grease the wheels and i neglected it. part of my heart still beats for youth ministry and every time i interact with students, that piece tugs harder. honestly, i don't know that i deserve to be in that position again. i don't know if i can accept God trusting me with all of that again. i feel really guilty for the way i selfishly abused the position. i feel like everyone was watching and so i tried to put up a grandiose facade and show the world that i was doing great and that i am indestructible, but the whole time i wanted them looking at me and thinking well of me, when ministry has nothing to do with boosting "me." by the time it was all over i felt as though i could die inside, the emotional equivalent to the physical aches of my run.
the cure? grease the wheels and keep running, each time farther and longer than before.
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| with so much turmoil in world politics and the impending presidential election, i have heard much speculation about the antichrist. people try to identify the individual whom satan will use to lead the masses away from God after the rapture* (according to my best application of Scripture). according to scripture, this event will stay secret until it happens, keeping everyone (including Satan) in the dark. for this reason, i believe Scripture gives good evidence that Satan will attempt to be ready for whenever that happens; he has a potential antichrist waiting in the wings at all points in history. all that to say, no one is born to be an antichrist (as God alone has planned purposes and destinies for us as our creator), but Satan has his eye on certain people who open themselves for use in this manner.
*rapture: different from the second coming indicated in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, Matthew 24:15-30, and Revelation 6-18, the rapture is classified as "meeting the Lord in the air", an event that will occur in the "twinkling of an eye" and "at any moment."
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| somewhere along this journey i took a wrong turn and everything around me looked similar to what i thought it should look like, but i have come far enough down the road to realize what wrong turn i made and now i just have to figure out how to make it right.
i have been hurt and ever since i take great care to maintain the thick wall around my heart. the more hurt i feel; the taller and thicker the wall gets, eventually keeping everything away just to avoid more pain. but God has been in the process of breaking me. i didn't realize until today that it's probably this wall that he's working on, one brick at a time. for a long time i've been asking Him what He's doing to me and why without reply. i think it's because i couldn't handle it. if He would have tried to tell me six months ago that He wanted to break down the wall around my heart, i would have hired more guards and invested in barbed wire. somehow because i didn't know, He snuck in and made a big hole. normally i would get freaked out by said hole except that He has His love gushing through so hard and fast that nothing else can get in or out. mostly because in this darkness and silence, i have missed love the most. i want to feel loved and to feel capable of love, which apart from God is impossible.
there's a song by barlowgirl that really resonates with me in this moment:
Why? Why are You still here with me? Didn't You see what I've done? In my shame I want to run, And hide myself.
Yeah, but it's here I see the truth, I don't deserve You.
But I need You to love me, And I, I won't keep my heart from You this time.
And I'll stop this pretending that I can, Somehow deserve what I already have
I need You to love me
I, I have wasted so much time Pushing You away from me. I just never saw how You could cherish me.
Cause You're a God who has all things, and still You want me.
And I need You to love me, And I, I won't keep my heart from You this time.
And I'll stop this pretending that I can, Somehow deserve what I already have
Your love makes me forget what I have been. Your love makes me see who I really am. Your love makes me forget what I have been, oh-oh.
And I need You to love me, I need You to love me,
And I'll stop this pretending that I can, Somehow deserve what I already have, Somehow deserve what I already have
I need You to love me, I need You to;
I need, I need You...
that wrong turn i made was thinking God would only love me if i did something to deserve His love. i prided myself in how much i have done for Him, all the sacrifices, all the steps of faith, but really i was just trying to buy His love, which i already have. i wouldn't let God just love me. that's all He wants to do. He doesn't want to fix my wall, He wants to break it down.
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