Transitions

It's been a hectic week.

I've now been serving as "Director of Communications and Young Adult Ministries" at FUMC Arlington, TX for one week, and I'm loving it.  Although, it's a complete change from where I was a week ago.

Gone is the regular daily routine.  I had a great weekly to-do list as a worship pastor.  I knew exactly what I had to do every day.  Now, before I go to bed and check out my Google calendar to psych myself up for what I'm doing the next day.  It's all about meetings.  Right now it's all church-y orientation stuff, but over the next few weeks I'll be heading more and more off campus meeting folks.  I'll be digging in with the evangelism team to see what's what there.  I'm going to Sunday School  classes - yes!  I have my first sermon here on the books for the last Sunday of April.

All in all, this is going to be super fun.  It will be a huge test for where my and my family's ministry is heading, but it's wicked exciting.

But, I still find myself pulling out the guitar to keep myself centered.  Keeping the family centered through prayer is also going to be an essential spiritual discipline as we deal with the path God has laid before us.  There is so much crazy ahead!  I truly feel that God has prepared me for this and my family is made to minister to other young families and young adults together.

It's so cool to be able to live into this new calling!

I miss a lot about my days as worship minister, a lot of people.  The hardest thing for me to balance every week was the essential thing for a worship ministry's weekly routine: the rehearsal.  Why was it hard for me? Because I really liked talking to people.  I had to be a super-rigid taskmaster in practice a lot of the time because I knew that I could get off on a tangent faster than most sopranos.

I spent the first three days of this job without an office computer and I tell you what, it was almost like a Sabbath rest from my usual daily work.  Instead of sitting at a desk I had to go out and talk to people to find something to do.  Some of the funnest ministry I've had a chance to do.

In the introduction to You Lost Me, David Kinnaman writes this:

But disciples cannon be mass-produced.  Disciples are handmade, on relationship at a time.

While my online calendar, Facebook, and Twitter are tools of my new trade, nothing is a substitute for a great conversation over coffee.  I'm in for some hard work.  But so much fun.

Have I mentioned that I'm excited?  I'm excited.

Really, really excited.