for your own goodness sake

Starting the new quarter, I noticed today that my classes are going to intersect in some highly exciting and challenging manners. It is so exciting, and yet so overwhelming. I guess that’s because I don’t want to believe that I’m learning things I care about. Yet knowing that a new quarter is beginning means that I yet again am inching closer to not formally studying this stuff. I think in some manner, I could do this forever (minus the whole paying for it thing, oh, and the working and studying crap I’m in). I’m not quite sure how this happened or why it is so alarming to think about moving beyond seminary, but it is. Maybe it only reminds me that a year and a half from now, I’ll be potentially moving? A real job? No more internships?! No freaking way!

All of this transition has led to an overwhelming amount of processing and questioning in the last few months. It’s not so much that I do not believe in or trust my call to ministry. But I sincerely have been asking the question of “is that all?” I feel selfish when I think it. I feel like I’m a brat, to be perfectly honest. It sounds as though I don’t value or really comprehend the brevity of a call to ministry, let alone what i call a deep and meaningful call to youth ministry.

The one thing that I do believe is that my life for years to come is going to include reading often and dialogging about culture, youth ministry, families, crisis, pastoral counseling, psychology, and adolescence. This is where my life seems to be inching. For all the time I can spend avoiding homework reading blogs about March Madness, analyzing my bracket, finding new music or reading about the new Indians’ season, I cannot deny that my heart bleeds and tears when I still get phone calls from back in Indiana or Pennsylvania, read status, look at pictures, or just watch dang tv anymore!

Youth ministry is my call. I just wish God wasn’t always so ambiguous about its’ praxis in my dang life.