from my actual journal entry:

Am thankful that God set my priorities straight. Not many showed up to OBOC Praise Night. But I wasn’t disappointed at all. It never was about how many youth would show up or not.

But something else came to mind after all was said and done. I’m going about this the wrong way.

The youth here, they don’t need a worship/praise night. At least, not at this moment. The purpose of the OBOC Praise night was for my youth to see “this is where we can and should be as a youth church.”

But what it turned out to be is: this is where I believe we should be, this is where I am. Come to where I am.
And, that’s not the way to go about this.
This ministry is a mission field. I know I said that many times before, but this time, it really is one. I can’t say to them, here I am, come to where I am. They’ll never make it.

I have to do something that, admittedly, I am horrible at: and that’s go meet them where they are. Go do visitations, go to their events, do a lot of meeting time outside of the church. Not to play, no, but to strengthen my relationship with them, and ours with God.

This isn’t a “follow me” ministry. It’s a “I’ll walk beside you as we go along” or even “I’ll be behind you and push you to help you keep moving” type of ministry.

One of the question I kept asking God was, why did you send me here? I know that this church was where I am supposed to be, but I just couldn’t figure out why.
Well, I guess one of the reasons why is to work on this side of my ministry, the pastoral side. To go meet people where they are. To initiate meetings and conversations. To just be with people. I don’t understand why that’s so difficult for me. But here is an opportunity to just work on that. Because this ministry won’t grow if I have the kids meet me where I am, or where I believe we should be. I need to walk with them, and together, figure out where God is leading us. And discovering where God is leading us, together, that’s going to be a great adventure in of itself.