Time ticks by...

So...

It's been almost 3 months. A lot has happened in that time.

This past weekend was a bit of a highlight. I went with Kate, Jan, Jess and a few others from church up to Winchester for a leaders day at the Vineyard there. It was really good. It was nice to see and hear from John Mumford (The national director for Vineyard UK) about all that has been happening. I can see why John Wimber liked him! Winchester was the first Vineyard that contacted me this past summer...I could have worked up there!! But Bognor is SOOO much cooler!!

During the first ministry time the pastor from the Salsbury Vineyard came and prayed for me. He had an encouraging word for me. He said he felt that God was going to make my time here more than worth it. Everything I expected isn't everything that God wants to do. BUT that in that there is struggle involved.

Monday and Tuesday were kind of tough days emotionally. I still feel at times like it's tough fitting in. I don't like the idea of starting over getting to know people...but who knows. I have to keep trusting God to lead and keep putting myself out there socially in spite of how hard it can be sometimes. Tuesday night I opened up a bit to the folks in my homegroup and it felt pretty good to feel that much more accepted.

Christmas plans are coming together here. I'll be up in Bedford with my cousins, so at least I'll see family. I did get to speak with my parents and my brother on Sunday, and that was nice. Phones are a sweet invention but Skype is so much cooler!!

I still have some dreams of Vineyard oak park. I miss friends who know me...but it'll be ok. In a years time, I'll look back and be thankful that the first year is down.

Sorry it's a tad random. I find it hard to keep things in order these days. I guess my age is showing! :-) Oh, I went with some people to see Casino royale on Sunday night. It was quite good, and I'm looking forward to the next one in two years!!

Troop and Foam are going ok. The holidays are kind of a challenge and I think we'll be a bit more settled after the new year. Please keep praying for me and the youth here. I know it will be some time before we find our groove, and we need all the prayer we can get.
Please drop me a line when you can!
Paul

Afer a while....

Ok...so it's been a little while.

Today I attended a child protection training session. I'm feeling a bit more "official" in my role now:-)

Thursday night Troop is in a bit of a fragile place, coming off a kind of tough night. My thoughts and plans for the group weren't so well accepted and we had to have a chat about some things relating to the transition phase.

When the church here started looking for a youth pastor they seemingly didn't include the youth in much of the process. These young people started this group out of an alpha course that was done 2 years ago and they have felt strongly about it being "their group" ever since. While they have had adults sit in and give direction it is a very different program approach to what I was trained in. A bit of a hard point for me to not take some of what they said that first of 2 disscussion nights personally. But the more I thought and prayed about it, I realized they don't really have grounds to know me or my life in Chicago, and God had to say "HEY! chill, it's not about you, it's about them and you need to listen to them and gather as much info as you can on the back story here". So the next week I asked DJ to come and help facillitate a discussion on how they feel. It went very well and this past week we had a social night led by Sara. This next week some of the members will take the welcome, the worship and the word time of the night.
Simalliar moves are being made with FOAM on Wed. nights. They want to have one night a month where they have a more active role in the group. So looks like my high and mighty training (or pride) needs to take a back seat and I need to learn to give some things away while at the same time providing direction or helping them stay on track with the focus of the night. If all that makes sense...

A bit of a challenge, but at the same time I feel a bit less pressure to come with something every week. Jess and Kate have been amazing here as well in helping me see the subtle differences between US youth culture and UK youth culture.

I do feel a bif of pride needs to be swallowed as well in the sense that the novelty of my arrival has worn off. So that's been a bit of a challenge.

This last week I met with a student at McDonalds here for a chat (he's from Croatia and is struggling with being a teen at the moment) and I met with another guy at Subway yesterday (he's almost 17 and his parents moved to the states without him and he's probably not going to see them for a year or so so he's going through a lot with learning to live on his own). So I'm seeing that my role is taking on a lot of discipleship aspects as well. I do like hanging out with these guys and just chatting with them about life.

This past week we started a university age small group. We meet again this week and I'm pretty stoked about it all! Please do keep praying for Troop, FOAM and the new house group. It's still challenging but I'm looking at it with some new ideas, and we could use all the prayer we can get.

I'm missing home and wish I could be there....I've dreamed of church and in my dreams no one has changed a bit! I still see the carpet in the sanctuary and the stage and all the chairs...even the lighting is the same...a bit dim at times but a warm place nonetheless...
That's life in a nut shell. Please do drop a line and let me know all that I'm missing!
Paul

quick note

So last Thursday was a bit of a night for the record books.

The las month and a half I've been leading troop and have felt a bit challenged in finding the best way to go about that. Thursday's plan for discussion wasn't well recieved and some of the students were honest about where they were at with some of the changes and I'm realizing some tough things:

The youth here really like to feel that the group is their own. They don't seem to click with the american style of leadership (youth pastor teaches every week). They want to contribute and I haven't really picked up on that.

There are other subtle cultural differences that I'm having to pick up on and adapt to. But it seems a big challenge for them is that for the last two years they've seen a lot with the group and now I'm brought in by the leadership and no one asked them if this is what they want. For them it probably feels like "here's paul, get used to him leading you".

So this week I asked DJ to come and help me clairify some things with them. It really is a learning process and I don't like it some days. But I'm really glad that last thursday some hard things got pushed onto the table and hopefully we can continue to talk about those things as they develop.

I need to run now and get some other things done. But things are really fun, I've been ice skating, off to see fire works, and out to lunch with people over the last four days!! Relationships are moving forward, and that's nice. Sorry this is so short...I wish you all could be here to see these things unfolding. It really is something!

Laters,Paul