Let's go!

Well, here I am crying at my desk. It has been a stressful time, but I just ran across this video of Mike Yaconelli, and it's given me goosebumps. Remember this stuff? Remember this feeling? When I started in youth ministry, we were all so brave, and full of excitement. We were on fire for kids, and for God and for the Church and we were so ready to make things happen. At that time, we hadn't even imagined anything like the sex abuse scandal, and the time of paranoia that has followed. We hadn't tasted the kind of fear we know today, and we were able to say "I love teenagers!!!" without some tiny percent of ourselves whispering "oh, does that sound wrong? Creepy? Can I say that? What will people think?"

I wonder what Mike would say about the state we find ourselves in today, suddenly facing a time when we'll be competing with the far to few of us that there are for the jobs in this archdiocese that only ever paid enough for someone to live very simply, or be married to someone with a "real job" anyway. We're looking ahead at a time of taking on the difficult task of trying to hang on to people, forget reaching out to people. We're starting to see a future of traveling between three or four church buildings to try and bring unity among three or four communities, even while realizing that we left our laptop at the other church. Our pensions may be gone, and that matters. Our diocesan offices are decimated, and limping. There is competitiveness and suspicion between the employees of this organization. We are in survival mode.

So when I stumbled across this video today it stirred something inside my too afraid, too academic, too safe, too lazy soul. I want this energy again. I want to say the things Mike says here, I want to go full tilt bore into brave, courageous ministry that begets brave, courageous future ministers. Who's with me?