Responding to Criticism

Im getting better at dealing with criticism. There was a time in my life when a constructive word, however gently put, would depress me significantly. As I press closer to God he reveals to me that only HIS opinion is important, then the words of others affect my heart alot less. As it should be.

There is still a momentary desire to act impulsively and make it go away in whatever means possible. I'm a fixer, and a talker. I like to talk things through. But when criticism is offered, passed on, or delivered in whatever manner is chosen (polite or not!) i prefer now to wait until my flesh has gotten over the initial pain, then wait for God's voice.

Take for example last week.

Can I have a lift?

I'm pretty excited. One of my youth kids sent me a text asking for a lift to church tonight. Its his first time at church as far as I know. Let's call him Lex. Lex lives out of town, so its a bit of a drive out of my way but I'm not concerned in the least. He is coming to church.
In March, the man and I attended Youth Pastors retreat

Murder Mystery Night

Last night was our youth night, which is officially titled Youth@theShed. Remind me to explain that one day.
We had a special theme night last night, "Murder Mystery night". The idea was borrowed from a fellow youth pastor (thanks Phil!) and was kind of a mass Cluedo game. Leaders of each of the connect groups were suspects, random items from the church building

Post School Exo Day Reflections

Last Wednesday week I overcame my inhibitions and we threw a local school exo day. When I first became a youth pastor and someone said school exo day I truthfully thought that was way to hard and to much trouble and simply just couldn't be pulled together in such a small country town from a similarly small church.
To be honest i wasn't even sure what it was, or what it was for. But yet.... we did it! And it rocked!! How I hear you ask?
I had so many questions, so here are a few that were running around my head,

It's Raining Bibles

It's not literally raining Bibles here in Blayney, but i wish it would! I was trying to think of a catchy title to match my blog post and I heard the song "it's raining men" at the cafe I had lunch at today and the two just kind of meshed together... so um...sorry.
Yes today I had a cafe lunch. Pasta with pesto if you're interested. I was having lunch with a Mum of one of the kids from youth

First one

Ive been a youth pastor for just over 2 years now, serving in a tiny country town in NSW Australia called Blayney, with a population of about 3000. We have 50-60 kids each week at this stage, and I'm praying for 100. I know numbers don't mean much to God but for me its a sign of growth which is a sign of health. But my main aim as a youth pastor is to have an effective pastorship, not just a growing one.

I keep wanting someone to talk about ideas, to see if my version of youth pastoring is a normal one (normal... I know) or some days just to celebrate the good moments and have someone mourn with me over the bad moments.