conference…

After a quick continental breakfast (some awesome canned sausage gravy over stale biscuits), I figured I should throw a few thoughts out. This week is “Annual Conference”, which is pretty much the Free Methodist version of “District Assembly” from the Nazarene days.

We come together from all our churches across the Conference, and talk about how it’s been going in our churches/ministries, and our prayers/hopes for the year ahead. We celebrate and worship, and sometimes mourn together. Oh, and some minor budgetary stuffs. Sometimes not so minor. But still just stuffs.

There are some hopes I’m excited about. Some hopes I probably won’t make public. But they’re hopefully all related to the Kingdom coming/being realized on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Overall, I’m pretty sure this past year was swell. Not to say that Moundford Free Methodist Church has a “booming” youth ministry. We may actually even be thinning out a bit. But I think we’re definitely moving forward. Building a new foundation…albeit probably slower than many (who want to see booming things) would like. With our new class coming in, we may actually balance out our male to female ration, which would be nice. Until they all get dates for church (wednesday nights usually), but most of them don’t return once the relationship goes south, anyways.

I’m also our Conference NSMT Director (which is akin to the Nazarene “NYI President” of a District) which stands for “National Student Ministry Team“. So I write out a quick little ditty of what we’ve done together as a conference, and a short schpiel of what lies ahead. I think things are going well there too, although honestly I need to nail down the hour or so a week I’m supposed to focus on this area. I’m pretty sure I have this position, cause no one else wanted it or had time for it…..but still…I want to be faithful to God in it.

It’s a nice little get-away in the middle of life. My wife and daughters are here with me, crashing at the Super 8. Not quite the luxury we enjoyed in Hawaii just a couple weeks ago….but at the same time, a bit more relaxing this morning. No pressure to go out and see/do everything. Just to be together. (and get to the meetings in time, hopefully)

Last night, my wife let me go out and be the crazy/social youth pastor I still am sometimes. Meetings ended at 8pm, then I headed over to Senior High camp to embarrass the girls from our church. Then went to Dairy Queen to hang with some pastors/etc. and socialize. Then back to the camp at 10:30 for a pizza party, and some more efforts to embarrass our teens. Back to the hotel by midnight.

I love my job.