While at ATF I came to a very important conclusion. Peter must have been a Youth Pastor. I believe I’ve written in the past about why Paul must have been a Pentecostal evangelist. Most respectable denominations make a point of wrapping up the sermon before some kid falls asleep in the window and dies. Leave it to a Pentecostal evangelist to preach on and on till the poor young man falls to his death. Ok, maybe some other denominations might have spoken on like that the last night of a camp meeting or something, but this is where you know Paul is a Pentecostal evangelist. he doesn’t let the incident slow him down. He’s all, “hold on for a sec, don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back.” Raises the boy from the dead, tells him to get back in his seat and try to stay awake, and then gets back up without losing his place.
Ok, so we know Paul was a Pentecostal evangelist, but why does that make Peter a youth pastor? Well, Peter was a royal screw up. I love the guy, but he really messed up a lot. I mean all the time. He has the rumblies in his tummy that only shoe leather could satisfy and boy did he eat a lot of shoe leather (I’m assuming the sandals were leather, but I guess it might actually be the Jesus rope sandals that were popular back in the 90s).
The thing about Peter, he wasn’t a screw up because he was a failure, he was a screw up because he was always going further. I mean yeah, he lost sight of Jesus and sank in the water, but none of the other disciples got out of the boat. Yeah, he swallowed his whole leg when he swore to defend Jesus instead of letting him die on the cross, but everyone else was happy o just think it. You’re right, he swore at some kid outside the place Jesus was being tried, but where were the other disciples?
That’s what a YP is supposed to do. he is supposed to plays some game that nearly kills a kid. The pastor wouldn’t do it because he knows how physics works. The YP’s wife would have told him “NO!!!!!” has she been informed. At the end of the day everyone survived more or less intact, and guess what, they’ll be talking about church for the next month in school now. You don’t see some boring Sunday School lesson resulting in the same level of discussion.
The thing about Peter, he failed because he kept trying. He never gave up.
Have you? What crazy “get out of the boat” kinda stuff is God calling you to right now?
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I guess for me, the normal has seemed crazy. Last year I thought the idea of me starting a women’s prayer group was crazy. I’m great with little kids, but I wasn’t made to lead adults. But God knows what He is doing. I haven’t really had to “lead” them. We are about a dozen women, and they have blessed me and encouraged me at least as much as I have them. Probably more. I called one lady to see how she was (She is very old. Probably played with Jesus when He was a child. Either that, or she was the baby sitter when Mary and Joseph needed to go to somewhere.), and ended up telling her about my health problem. She prayed for me for hours until the bleeding slowed down. It has now stopped, and I have seen a doctor who thinks it is most likely a very simple problem.
But then starting that was last year. What about this year? I suppose it is time for me to quit worrying about whether I am ready to teach again and just send out my resumes and see how He uses that. Will I teach? Substitute? Become a teacher’s aide? Provide much needed scrap paper for the school secretary? We shall see….