Something someone said

I have not written much in a long while, mainly because I have not been inspired to write. I had an experience last night that has made me think a little and then reading a xanga post from Charity made me think even more.



Ministry takes on different forms at times, I realized this morning that perhaps last night was one of those times that ministering looked different. As a Youth Pastor I think regularly of my youth, wondering what they are up too, whats going on in their minds and what can I do to encourage them, to spark their creative minds to flow. I do not usually think the same way of adults or youth parents...



Last night we visited a youth family that in all the years of knowing them in our church we have never made the effort to visit them. I spent a great portion of Sunday evening and Monday wondering what it would be like to visit them, wondering if it would be weird or if we would all struggle to find conversation. This family is usually a quiet keep to yourself type of family, don't say a whole lot.



As we depart from our house Alli and I talk a bit more of what the evening might be like, how things might flow. This usually quiet family meets us outside as we arrive with excitement in their voice and a happiness all about them that sort of gets me excited. I can't help but feel the warmth of the family as we enter and begin our conversations for the night. As we sit and eat I quickly relaxed and became comfortable with the whole situation and wondered to myself as I looked at our host "has our visit caused joy in the lives of these people"? Reading Charity's blog about the young girl that wanted to know if Charity would return to visit her (the young girl lives in an orphanage in Taiwan) Charity explained of course the young girl wanted to know if Charity would return, she wanted to know if this person was just a one time visit never to return again or if Charity was someone worth getting to know, someone that would invest the time to love her. As I read this in Charity's blog I could not help but think if the same thing applied to this family we visited last night, we as Americans tend to avoid people, we tend to stay away from people because we think they are high maintenance and not worth investing our time in, but last night I think was an investment with a positive Godly return that I have not even seen yet.

It sort of breaks my heart as I think about those around us who just long for people to take interest in them, to invest a little bit of time and at the end of the day when you see the immediate results of that investment if you are anything like me you feel a bit of guilt overtake you because you did not do it sooner. Some of us think we have nothing to offer anyone, that people would never want to hang around us anyway, in all truth those people just want us to love them and invest a little time in them.

There are more families right here in America, in our on church that just want someone to take the time to love them, to invest a few moments of our life in them. I saw a side of a family last night that I have not seen before really and I can tell you as much as I like to sit here and type that my family ministered to another family, truly that family ended up ministering to our family. Love reaches far beyond what we can imagine........step outside the box this week and see how you can love someone in a different way that perhaps will challenge you to be a different person and to live life a little differently.