Ministry Final

Hello Everyone,
I am not sure how long it has been but I will only write on this last week. Which was (drum roll) MINISTRY FINAL!!!! Ministry final is where we go and take everything we have been taught up to date and apply it. This year they divided us into three groups. The 1st yrs were divided into there traffic groups (ministry learning groups) and then us second yrs were our own group. On Monday we all went to the Valley and had a meeting with a businessman in are church and he talked about professionalism and business ethics. On the way back we were all assigned hand tailored jobs for each of us designed with the intension of challenging us in different areas. I’ll list them off in the order they came.
Trevor, lead and execute a youth service that night.
Lance; come up with a new ministry venue to present to the pastoral staff Wed. morning.
Bre, plan and execute an outreach for both 1st and 2nd yrs that has never been done.
Krista, manage the 2nd yr team and make sure all assignment are done.
Esther, focus on relationship NOT task. Plan and execute an outreach to a nursing home.
Well we had a LOT of questions and then we dived in. Monday night’s service was good but not all that it was supposed to be. So are first lessons to be learned. For Trevor you HAVE to Rely on your team. For me I hurt my team by not speaking up. I’ll expound later.

On Tuesday we had academic stuff in the morning and then jumped into planning an outreach (Bre) for a woman shelter. It went really good, we all had a great time. But this was just an outreach with us second yrs. So it didn’t count as Bre’s assignment. Then when we got back from that 8ish we jumped into preparing Lance’s Ministry Venue. We worked on that till 4:30-5ish wed. AM and then we went home showered took an hour nap and came back all dressed up to present it to the Pastoral staff.

Wednesday, Our presentation was supposed to be 10min. long with A&Q. We finished presenting in 7 min and then the Pastors proceeded to question us for 42 min. It was really good and we all learned a lot and we will continue to work on the Ministry Venue and present it again. From this Lance learned in a major way about having a soft heart and tough skin. And taking what is said and learning from it. And the rest of us learned this in varying degrees. We then spent the rest of the day preparing for Esther’s nursing home outreach. And doing Financial Peace University. And then after all that we had mid-week ministry and I have to tell you all I love my Preschoolers. Then we all went home and studied a little bit and went to bed. YEAH

Thursday, we madly practiced our instruments the nursing home. And then we ran to lunch buddies ran back grabbed stuff threw it into Lance’s jeep talked to the first years about what we were doing that evening With them. And ran to the nursing home. We had a lot of fun it is always so much fun to go to nursing homes you leave feeling so encouraged. But the Race was on again so back to the church we went and taught the 1st yrs the skit they were doing for that evening threw a different set of stuff into the Van (caught ya you thought I was going to say Jeep HAHAHA) and went to a after school program place for kids and had a Christmas party with them. It was fun and Really nice to have the 1st yrs back with us.

So what did I learn over all from all of this? I learned that you have to speak up. Unfortunately for Trevor I learned this from not doing so with his ministry (sad day) some of the components that he was supposed to have were creative and using the whole team. I knew he was doing either but I didn’t tell him I decided that it was better for me not to interferer. Boy was I wrong that night when Shelly and Pastor Josh evaluated the service they tore him up pretty bad for not using his team. His sermon was good and interaction with the kids was good. But he didn’t use his team. Now the fact that I had seen this and not pointed it out to him was really an eye opener for me. And so I tried really hard the rest of the week. I spoke up and present my argument to Pastor Josh for a Curfew extension and because of it we got curfew lifted so we were able to finish Lances projected. If I hadn’t that would have been another meeting I sat through going I saw this and let my team down by not speaking. I later let Esther down by not helping keep everyone focused on Wednesday (we were all so Very Tired) I helped both Bre and Lance by critiquing they’re speaking. (Funny I know since I’m the one that doesn’t speak. But I did take a public speaking class and they haven’t) So I will continue to work on this speaking up thing. Something of interested that Esther told me was that by not speaking up you lose the right to be heard. And this was meant only in a good way not in a bad overbearing sort of thing. So that is what I am coming away from this week with.

I have to go study or I would tell you all about yesterday and today as well. But I will say Really fast that today’s outreach was Amazing. And we are beginning to see the fruit of are labors in Hillyard from over the last 2ish yrs.
~Krista

My thoughts

Hey everyone life is still pretty laid back, but busy at the same time. We are making another human video and it is really cool. I am excited about it. I am also playing the lead girl in it WOHOO.

On a bit more of a serious note, I have some thoughts from a scavenger hunt we did the Friday after thanksgiving. With this scavenger hunt a group of adults from the church goes to the mall and hides, while the youth tries to find them. The youth that finds the most people get a reward.

The hiders are encouraged to dress up. Bre wore her host brothers clothes and went as a boy, Molly dressed like a girl punk rocker. I dressed up like an interesting Emo/Goth. I ended up getting separated from the group and walking around the mall by myself for two hours. I learned a lot by doing this.

People would shy away from me like I had leprosy. This was weird because people usually crowd me and make me move for them! The little kids were all scared of me and were hiding behind their mothers! Everyone else acted like they didn’t SEE me! Now, they had to see me to avoid me. Didn’t they? After an hour of this I really just wanted someone to smile at me or even acknowledge my presence. One person did a person at a KIOSK!

I got to thinking about it. The place was crammed with people from the church, but none of them saw me. I walked by all the youth kids, and because they wouldn’t look at me, they didn’t recognize me. How often do we walk around judging people by how they are dressed? All the mothers that hid their children from me, would have let me baby-sit if I was dressed differently!

How may of the people that look mean and scarey that walk around the malls or around town are inside longing for someone to just smile at them? I was. You have kids with bad lives that start dressing scarey or even just DIRTY, because they cant afford nicer, and people treat them like outcasts. Except the RELLY gothic people, the witches, they will accept them. So that is where they go. The whole time they might be crying out, as they are be dragged down that road, but we, as Christian,s don’t see or hear them because they are ”scarey” and not “acceptable”. Next time you see these people, try smiling instead of the judging look that asks why someone would dress like that.

I'm about to be shut off so I don,t have time to reread this so if it is hard to read in places sorry.