it is late and i have a huge headache, but i can’t sleep so i am hoping this will calm my brain. today has been a crazy day. since i woke this morning i have been emailing, facebook, myspace, on the phone, or talking face to face with people about the recent actions by our ccom leadership. it has been a day try and explain an unexplainable to people that i care deeply for. the culmination came in tears while talking to one of our conference youth who called needing to make sense of it all. it broke my heart to hear "everyone is getting taken away from me" and then rattled off a list of youth leaders (beth included in that list) and a pastor that have significant meaning in her life. all i could say, "i am sorry, but i am here  for you." that hurts and is unnecessary.

some of the voices out there wanting to be heard.

• johnathan, one of our ccym members who blogs posted some of his letter to the bishop
• natalie shared her letter
• jay has his conversation with the bishop & a point of clarification (i followed you bro)
• jason remembered some conversations a group of us were having last week, in light of our recent situation. though i forgot the quote i too remembered the crux of our conversation. the part i remember most was david dark breaking down "administer" having the root word "minister" and the "admin" is action of being a conduit of God’s ministry..
• steve shares empathy and thoughts
• one of our ex-ccym’ers shares a facebook note (this might not be readable due to facebook constraints)
• the petition has a pretty good number of folks which is cool

i have some emails that i would like to share, but i need to get permissions before so & it is late and those normal people are asleep now and not answering emails. maybe tomorrow

what i am asking now? pray for us, i am worried that our leadership is chasing a romanticism of evangelism/mission that is not the calling for all churches. in jay’s conversation with the bishop jay paraphrased with this: emphasis mine

The ultimate goal is not to marginalize ministries with youth and
children, but to direct more resources toward ensuring that youth and
children become faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. The vision is
especially directed at reaching at-risk kids in a more effective
manner, providing resources that help churches to reach out in new ways.

now i might sound heretical in this, but when i hear "at-risk" i think low income, ethnic youth, from a housing project.. from here-say conversations, i believe this is the concept of the bishop as well. the problem, "at-risk" kids come in all ways & we are throwing away two effective sustainable ministries for a heart-string romanticized view of the mission field. my youth at hfumc might not need food on their table, but they have a poverty out of their affluence that is equally damaging to the shaping of identity & self-concept. if this vision is such a heartstring then just hire a new staff person, part time, or maybe petition some of the affluent churches who have missions or evangelism people to collaborate for the purposes of educating the conference. that sounds like a pretty good idea, but "oh wait!" i wasn’t invited to the table to talk to share that idea…

so now i am asking people to send stories to bishop wills & loyd mabry about the evangelism and discipleship that the youth ministries & children’s ministries has done for them. it needs to be claimed that transformation happens even if we are not doing the sexy stuff in ministry. a story, i think, that is perfect is not even a youth, it’s my friend doug.

doug’s wife went to a methodist church, she was befriended by the youth minister at that church. the youth minister invited over to the house met doug who didn’t have a care in the world for God or a religion. the youth minister began a relationship with this couple and invited doug to come and play around at one of the entrance type events. doug loved being with the youth, he learn of Christ alongside the youth. eventually doug got serious about his relationship with Christ, accepting Christ beginning studies, asking questions, working with the youth passionately. eventually the church made him a youth leader with part time pay. he got involved in the youth ministry institute a thorough training program for youth leaders in our conference and deepened conference relationships & covenant relationships with other fellow youth workers (myself included). he’s so charged up about his vocation in youth leadership he is now enrolled at martin methodist getting his undergrad degree (still keeping full time job and working with the youth at his church)…

that is what i call making disciples, which, if i remember correctly has something to do with the mission of the church. there are many stories of that sort, but they are not fancy, people don’t write books about middle aged white man who met some crazy kids and he found Christ and has taken his role as Christian seriously.

i fear that we romanticize and let our heartstrings be tugged to the point we are forgoing stable, sustainable and life changing ministries for the sake of change to meet another need in the body. to me, that doesn’t seem like vision, that seems like agenda…

thanks for listening to my late night ramble.