Week 1:
This was an interesting week. I learned a little about how to deal with problems involving the leadership. There was some confusion/ deception coming from one of our worship leaders. It's putting Ben (the Youth Pastor) in a tough situation. The worship leader has another sibling that is on leadership and two other siblings in the youth group. Their parents are already a little hesitant about their kids going to our church, but removing this person from leadership may affect more people than intended. I learned that situations like this are when the wisdom of Senior Pastors comes in handy. They talked about it and came to some conclusion (I'm not sure what it was?)
Other than that situation, I have a better understanding of what all is expected from a youth pastor. Ben is also the right hand man for Mark and Nicki Pfeifer Ministries (our senior pastors). I helped him on Wednesday by copying about 250 cd's. Pastor Mark is speaking at a conference in Texas in two weeks and they will need plenty of product to sell. That is how they fund their ministry by selling their cd's and dvd's. They are preparing for a trip to Africa where they are putting on a conference for pastors there, but the thing is, they have to pay for the pastors to come to the conference. So I keep reminding myself when I feel like I'm wasting time, that this is for a blessed ministry with a Kingdom mindset.
Later Wednesday afternoon I helped Ben put the finishing touches on his sermon for Wed. night. We had to come up with helpful illustrations. After the list was made, I went all over town to get the props. He also asked me to give a quick testimony about how bad relationships can get in the way of us and God. Wednesday night service went great and I stuck around a little to do some filming for commercials to promote camp (July 27 - Aug 1). I have three promo's done and I'm working on about one or two more to send out to the other churches that go to our camp. This week wasn't really hard work, but it was a great way to start off the summer and I think I'll have some great opportunities to learn from Ben and Pastor Mark in the next few months.
