Youth + Responsibility

I traveled this morning to Charlottesville, home of Aldersgate UMC to hear Matt preach. Those of you who haven't heard him are really missing out. Aldersgate was having their Youth Sunday, highlighting the things that their youth group has been up to. Unfortunately, their youth group took a hit from the flu and had a small representation there. Prayers for healing for their youth!

Anyways, here's what I got out of the sermon. Matt talked about the youth having the responsibility to save the church. Not save it as in changing any doctrine, but save it as in bringing life back into the church through membership (and finances, but we won't talk about that part until we have real jobs). It sounds like a big task, and it is, but we shouldn't feel disheartened or inadequate or impatient for the job to get done. Matt's main point was that we have to focus on the small gains that we make, not getting discouraged by the large task at hand. Small gains like bringing a friend to Church on Sunday, getting a friend to sign up for the missions trip (Spring Break 2010- South Carolina- You should come!). By focusing on the positive small gains, the large task doesn't feel so daunting does it?

I was thinking about this relating to school, which we as college students all know (or should know). When you get assigned a big term paper at the beginning of the semester it feels like a huge daunting task right? But what happens if you split it into smaller parts to work on, does that make it seem easier? So you do some research and general background reading on the topic, and then you're able to focus your topic better than when you knew nothing. Then you can start asking questions and finding answers. And finally you write, just getting thoughts on the page, even if they're not well written or grammatically correct. Just thoughts. Once you have some thoughts, then you can go back and edit. But the hardest part always seems to be getting the thoughts in your head transformed to words on the screen (or paper). Can you tell I have a term paper?

The scripture today was 1 Timothy 4-16 and Joshua 1:1-9. In relation to the paper, or the large task, what these two verses tell us is that in order to not become impatient or feel inadequate, you have to persevere, be diligent and do not get discouraged. These three things will help to keep your focus on the positive short term goals and gains rather than freaking out about the long term.

Time to get back to the paper.