Callings

Taught Sunday School this morning for high schoolers/middle schoolers. It's been a long time since I've done any real "teaching" in youth ministry (since Durango?). It went okay. I'm not a great public speaker but for whatever reason I like to keep trying (I don't think it's because I like hearing myself talk...but could be). I try and do things in a discussion format as much as possible...it went over ok today, but not super. I barely knew any of the kids, which I think both helps and hurts.
I realized that topic wise I am always much more interested in trying to save kids (both Christian and non) from the church and Christianity than I am in trying to "get them saved" in a spiritual sense. Having grown up in the church and gone to Bible School and been involved with so many different ministries I've really come to believe that nothing can kill your faith quite like the church, and nothing can turn a well meaning Christian into a complete ahole quite like the church.
I think I've felt a lot of guilt in the past about not feeling particularly called to standard "evangelism", but I'm beginning to think that there's a place and a need for people with my calling, just as much as there is for "evangelists". As I talked about this morning, Jesus spent a ton of time trying to save his followers from becoming like the religious leaders (pharisees) and trying to save the pharisees from themselves.

In other wierd youth ministry news - the pastor at Jen's church stopped her yesterday and asked about me, apparently offering some sort of paid youth ministry position. I assumed this was some sort of assistant position, until Jen told me they announced the youth director's resignation this morning. My thoughts before this news was that if they needed an extra body I might be able to do their Sunday afternoon youth group or help out on a trip or something, but now no thanks. I'm not interested in being an interim, and that kind of falls in with the whole issue of callings. I know my gift is not in taking over a program that is probably falling apart.