Project Destiny ended a little less than a month ago. I’ve gotten plenty of opportunities to rest up between then and now, even with helping program a youth retreat and planning our Fall teaching series scattered in there. It was a bonus to be able to go to Cape Cod for biking, bird-watching, and camping in August. I’m just about ready to head back to school and I’ll soon be spending time reviewing Greek and getting used to thinking academically again.
I’m really grateful for having had another opportunity to direct PD again. Last year, as I may have told you, was a tough summer that God used to teach me a lot about leading and caring for people. This year, I got to apply some of those lessons to a new team. Once again, this year, God showed me that I am not the shepherd that He wants me to be yet—I am more task oriented than I thought and love people less than I imagine. But He is leading me in that direction and shaping me in that way. By his grace, we fielded an outstanding team that learned to depend on the Lord through the daily ups and downs of ministry life together.
One of the things I like most about directing PD is having a team that might not usually work together. That was the case this year as our young and diverse team came together from Newton, Chinatown, suburbs, the city, out of state, out of country, and many different walks of life. One of the first devotionals of the summer was the passage in 1 Corinthians, which speaks of care for one another as a defining characteristic of Christ’s Body. The first day of training, I must say, was a little quiet. People didn’t intermingle very much. And during free times, instead of playing, everyone would just work on their lesson plans! I began to wonder if this team would ever gel to the point of opening up to one another. But over the course of the next few weeks, as we spent more time together, God knit the team closer together. At our overnight retreat, we had an extraordinary time sharing about how God had shown grace, an evening punctuated by spontaneous singing! The very next week, we saw personalities come out in an uplifting time of candlepin bowling on one of the team nights.
As camp started the team dealt with the day-to-day challenges of working together. We encountered our own expectations and shortcomings as well as God’s faithfulness and provision. Throughout camp, I sprinkled in several devotionals about the resources that the gospel gives us to love one another. I taught on patience vs. grace, how our seeing our own sinfulness enables us to love, and how we only begin to truly love people when we deal with their sin. What a huge privilege it was to lead this team from the point of not knowing each other to the point of almost knowing each other too well! It was amazing to see how God’s Word is always fruitful and applicable to every situation and that his Holy Spirit in us helps us to respond to that Word, giving us insight and changing us to better glorify and proclaim Jesus as savior and lord.
As far as campers go, we had 50 students this year. 37 of them decided to come to Summer Teen Conference, our church’s regular youth group retreat. Up to 10 kids said they wanted to receive Jesus as their savior—praise God! While I’m grateful for those numbers, I know it is the work of the Holy Spirit to hold and sustain those campers and that not all planted seeds will yield a lasting crop. More encouraging to me is the numbers of PD kids who expressed interest in attending regular youth group, where they can continually hear God’s Word preached and where they can be cared for by adult counselors. In years past, I remember having huge farewells and lots of hugs at the end of camp because we were unsure of when we’d see each other again. This year, there were fewer of those. I like to think it’s because more of them know they’ll probably see each other at youth group. It takes a long time to make a disciple—I know it usually doesn’t happen in one summer. So praise God for the campers that continue coming to church regularly, who make up about 40% of our regular Friday night ministries!
As September comes, I’ll be back at regular youth work. It seems I’m getting deeper and deeper into the planning of the Friday Night ministry. I remember when I began youth work—I was a three-month call-up to my friend’s Dorchester church to help set up a worship band of teenagers. Now God has put me in a church with resources to do large-scale urban ministry—He has given me much of the responsibility for teaching and shepherding 80 youths, as well as directing the summer entry-point for the majority of the newcomers. It’s crazy, scary, and humbling at the same time. Please pray for me as I depend on the Lord to show me how to balance my time between ministry, seminary, relationships, and possibly work in the Fall.
I hope to be back at this for PD 2010. Lord wiling, we’ll begin planning for the next summer in October or November. I’ll try to keep y’all updated via my sadly mismanaged blog: bostonministry.blogspot.com
Thanks for all your prayers and support! Please feel free to catch me to ask me about anything . You’ve been a huge blessing to me this summer in providing for my needs and praying for me. Thanks again!
Peace,
Steve
Images: 1) Cape Cod Biking 2) Some counselors at my house in Quincy celebrating my 28th Birthday 3) Two counselors hard at work
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