"If you like your ministry, then you must not be minisitering"...

      So lets give some updates shall we? Right now we are in revival with Alvin Smith, this radical-contagious-soulful-singer-preacher type. He's amazing! And Black! He literally sings throughout the entire sermon and during praise and worship he sings so loud from behind the song leader that you can hear him even into the 5th and 6th rows. During the sermons I find myself lurched forward in my seat digging my elbows into my knees as if getting any closer could make the annointing any stronger...He's practically the definition of supernatural.
       Anyways. About two or three weeks ago Ashley invitied these two girls out (I think), but they've been coming ever since. They're 14 and 10. They come to the concerts and atleast every night service. They even came to two outreaches and LOVE IT. They are so into everything, love God and aren't ashamed. Now granted they are young and defentley New Convert status so they have a lot to learn but they are defentley open to letting God use them. They have brought up to 5 visitors at one time to the concerts, and bring friends to church almost everytime. Jaime and Ash say that the girls have taken a liking to me, and I am defentley starting to see that. They practically flock me. I felt like a mother duck the other night, after service, the girls followed me single file (literally) throughout the entire church until I finally said "Okay, we're leaving, get your things".
        The first outreach they came to, I felt so bad---it was pouring down rain, and by pouring I mean rain was coming down in the droves. We were all soaked by the end of it, but the girls stuck through. The youngest, Lisa, was even asking why we don't do this in more public places, like pools, where we could just preach and sing and stuff. We assured her in the summer we do that much more often because the weather actually permits. Lisa is even anxious for ministry. She was itching to ask me about joining drama and is well determined to join Untold Stories, but she hasn't quite brought that one up to Ash or Jaime yet- Ha! You should of seen the look on her face when we broke it to her that she has to be coming consecutively for atleast six months to join ministry. She was so disappointed and talks about it all the time, about how she cannot wait for these six months to pass. I just laugh and assure her that they will, "believe me kid, they will, faster than you know".
      But a sermon by Pastor Smith defentley dealt with me concerning these kids. I really like them a lot, they are funny and nice- but they're so young. And yes I know that I am practically a bottle of uncontained energy and can usually be confused with a prepubescent teenager, but I am ubdoubtedly older. It has defentley taken a lot for me to remain nice---all the time. That dosen't sound so hard when said, but to actually do that is so difficult. I can't just act nonchalant around them like I do with my friends, I have to maintain this constant level of - happy. But Pastor Smith was talking about the powers of the Holy Spirit, and he said "it gives us the ability to deal with people"...and that is true! I've defenetley been asking for major grace towards these kids because I didn't realize before how hard it truely is to be a disciple in this sense of the word.
      I like it though, it's good for me. I love ministry, but so often in ministry I simply must do things I don't want to do...and this just happens to be one of those instances.
-Toby K.