Sundays and feet

Many times in ministry days can just be a blur. You have guest speakers, not enough volunteers, new projects, broken pagers, wild kids...etc. As we were wrapping things up this morning I was monitoring the bounce house and one of my first graders was putting his shoes on had something to tell me about his soccer game yesterday. He always sounds excited about things and I could not quite understand what he said so I said "great" or "awesome". Well his mom happened to be standing there and asked me if I heard what he said. I responded sheepishly "something about soccer, but I couldn't tell for sure what it was". She told me he said "Yesterday a soccer ball hit me in the face". Wow! Did I feel like a jerk. It stinks when you get so caught up in the noise that you miss what's really important - the relationships. I hope the families at the Rock Church know that I love their children and really don't think it's cool for them to get hit in the head by soccerballs. My favorite part of working with children is the relationships. I love it when kids are so excited to tell me about their week or something important that happenned. Next week, I'm not going to miss out on that.

Summers End and Sabbatical

A little over 4 years ago my old Pastor asked me to come and lead the Elementary Ministries at the Rock Church. I have been faithfully serving there since on a part time basis. I absolutely love my church. The people there are awesome and truly care about each other. I had a few things this summer going on and needed some time off. I asked my Pastor Scott Fenton for the time and he asked me to take off a few more weeks for a Sabbatical of Sorts. One day, I would love to take a few weeks off and go to Yosemite or something and just connect with God. However, I still have a family and a job to take care of, so I had a few Sundays off. It was nice I was able to visit a few other churches and just relax on Sundays without having to plan any lessons or tear down any bounce houses or load any trucks or trailers. I have to admit - I really enjoyed the time off and it went by very quickly. However, I was very excited to go back to my church. I was brought before the church on Sunday and was shown alot of appreciation. It is great to feel loved. I had kids hugging me and parents thanking me and friends welcoming me. It was great to be back at the Rock. I have had a few job offers in the past year that I have turned down because God wants me right where I am. There are some great things going on at the Rock and our community. We have a huge Block Party coming up on Sept 13 and the following weeks some special guests in the Children's area. I thank God for the opportunity to serve where I am at and I thank the people for believing in me and supporting me.