Cannonball

Need I really say more? Ha ha that's a Christian youth group for you!

Last night we had our first combined youth group meeting. We call them 'Lifegroups' at my church. There were a lot of people there and the discussion was pretty good. It would have been better if the video we had watched had been any good, but what can you do?

I can't wait until we have our on separate Youth leading the Youth groups. I'm pretty sure they will be led by Greg and Peter on the boys side, and Jan and me on the girls side. It's going to be awesome. I mean, we do so many irrelevant things that don't really apply to any of us in our adult led lifegroups, and when it's us four in charge...

Well, we know what the real problems are, you know? We know what's actually going on and no one will be afraid to talk to us about their problems, the serious ones. I mean, no one is going to come up to our youth pastor and be like "I had sex with my boyfriend and it didn't seem that bad." Or "I think I'm addicted to drugs" or whatever. It's not like we have those problems at our church, but if we did, it would be so much better for them to talk to us than our youth pastor. And all of us have the power and the knowledge to help.

I realized something scary the other day. I am completely devoted to band. I play the sousaphone and I'm going to be section leader this year. This year we might actually win something, I can feel it. The feeling of pride and belonging that comes with Marching Band can't be beat. But I realized that if I had to, I would give it up. I would quit if I needed to. If this new missions/leadership thing needed more of my time and effort, I would give up my favorite thing in the world and focus only on church.

I've always held on to stuff. I never really understood what it meant when people said you should "give everything up to God", and that seemed like a weighted statement. I mean, you can't possibly give everything up to God, a person can't live with nothing. But I think I understand a little more now. I'm willing to quit the activity that is going to pay for my college, I'm willing to see my best friends less, if it means that I'm getting that much closer to where God wants me to be.