So we're about to head into Fall Break on campus. What that means is that our fall is more than half-way through, and it's always a time to sit back and reflect on the start of the year.
This fall on campus has been about the funkiest that I've ever experienced. I came in with great expectations. We've got fantastic student leaders, I'd been thinking a lot about growth and how we could continue to grow and expand our ministry on campus, we've got a great staff team...all the pieces seemed to be in place for an all-systems-go start to the year.
But it hasn't happened that way. Everything's felt a little off: our New Student Welcome events were good but not fantastic. A few were major disappointments. Our weekly large groups have felt overly-intense and very low energy. Our new room that we moved into thinking that we would continue to grow (we've added about 100 students to our ministry in the past couple of years) has swallowed us whole.
The clearest indicator of our funk came at our New Student Retreat a couple of weekends ago. We had 125 two years ago, 115 last year, 50 two weeks ago. Like I said, off.
So I've spent much of the past several weeks frustrated, and at points trying to figure out what it means to be disappointed faithfully. I'm not sure how I've done. I've been frustrated a lot with the Lord and with myself. I've been mystified by our funk. I've been a little disoriented.
Friends have tried to tell me what I know to be true, but I've resisted their counsel. I've wanted to be mad at the Lord. I've wanted to try to fix it. I've ridden the roller-coaster the past seven weeks of frustration, disappointment, striving, anxiety, anger, questioning, and finally just in the past week or so, I've come to a place of restful resolve.
This past Sunday we gathered our leadership team together and I tried to put words around what's gone on these first six weeks. And then I tried to rally us towards the future. It's only early October. The Lord's not done with us yet.
I called our leaders to be FOR one another (not to quit on the community), to call on the Lord together, and to consider that if we can't just throw a party and have 125 new Christians show up, then maybe God's calling us to throw a party and pray that 125 non-Christians show up. We need to have more fun. We need to "live more playfully and believe more recklessly." We need the Lord to do a miracle to push us forward in a fresh way.
Tonight, we had another large group meeting. It was probably the best large group we've had all year. The Lord's not done with us yet. I have a lot of hope. But I had to work through that disappointment stuff. At points I probably wallowed, and was over-anxious and all that. But the God of all Hope has come. And he's doing something really cool and really unique in our community this year. I can't wait to see what happens
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