The Beginning . . .

For a while now, God has placed a burden on my heart. I’ve felt the desire/need to get our youth ministry involved in serving in our community. I’ve spent quite a bit of time asking God to lead me and give me discernment.

The issue: In the Youth Ministry, we do a lot of things like summer camp, CIY, Midwinter Retreat, etc which require a lot of traveling. To do those things, also requires a lot of money; therefore, we do a lot of fundraisers. On average, we spend about $20,000-$25,000 per year on trips, camps, conferences, and activities.

Now don’t get me wrong, these are all quality events, well worth the time and effort; so I don’t feel that we are “wasting our money” by choosing these things. The teachings, the worship, the programs all teach great things.
But, we go to these events every year. Last year, we took over 60 students to these events. Sometimes, students are convicted to act on what they learn and hear, sometimes they are not. And normally, by December, they have forgotten or given up on what they felt such great conviction on during the summer.

The questions that God has laid on my heart concerning these things: “How many events do we need to attend to truly follow Christ?”, “ How many times do we need to go to an event before we start living what we believe?”. If we take an honest look at ourselves, how different are our lives from the people who have not accepted Christ? Is there evidence that we allow God to lead us? Are we truly living our lives in submission to the Holy Spirit?

The simple fact is that we are spending $20,000-$25,000 per year only on ourselves. That seems very selfish to me. We go, year after year, and not much really seems to change as a result of these expenses.

So to summarize,
1. We spend a lot of money taking students to events to learn how to deepen and strengthen their lives with God.
2. Very few people seem to be impacted by these events in any real and lasting way.

Also, I’ve been researching the local out-reach ministries in town to see what kind of opportunities are available, but honestly, none of them really “feels right”. Not that their not good programs; they are. They are filling needs. But, none of them have been resonating with the burden that I feel God has laid on me.
The other night, I was watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition with my family, and the group went to build a house for a lady who ran a “youth center” in a low income area of town. In addition, the group went around and did some mini-makeovers for some of the kids who lived in that neighborhood.

While watching this program, I felt the Spirit move inside of me. It was like He was saying, “This is what I’m talking about”. You should be helping people in the community who live in substandard living conditions.

So the next day, I contacted Gene Palmos, the head of our Missions Ministry Team. It appears that God had been putting the same thing on his heart as well. So we hoped in his truck and drove around the community near our church. There were dozens of houses that we could see of that needed repair, painting, cleaning, etc.
We saw one house where a tree had fallen on a garage. The lady who owned the house just happened to be outside, so we stopped to talk to her. She said the tree had fallen on her garage during Hurricane Dolly, over a year and a half ago. She wants it torn down and removed but just can’t afford it.

So, we, now, have our first project: remove a garage to be set up for early January.


While there are many service opportunities in our area, it appears that the Holy Spirit is calling us to do something that is not being done. I feel He is calling us to reach out into the community to offer help to those who cannot help themselves.

The goal of this is to accomplish one thing: to bring glory to God. But there is a catch: I don’t want us to do it in the traditional way. See a need, go out and ask for money, help, etc. I feel that we need to rely solely on God for success. In other words, if God does not show up, then it will fail.

Can you imagine how students will be impacted when they are involved in something that has no chance of success unless God shows up? Can you imagine what will happen to their faith when they see Him move?

There will be more to come.