Forest through the Trees

As I come to the end of the school year which also means the end of the main season of my life in working with young people I can't help but reflect of the year that we just had. Some of these moments were great to reflect on and very uplifting while some others show disfunction or at the very least discomfort. But what I've learned especially this year is that all situations whether they be good or bad can be great opportunities to grow.

In my work this past year we took one area of our programming into a new direction. It was in fact a very new direction and one that I had never seen before so for us at least we were carving a new path. We started with a vision, lots of questions and a solid goal of expectation with wide amounts of flexibility as long as our final goal was still reached.

As we started the year off differently we had some initial excitement and some confusion but we navigated through the challenges. But it didn't take long to get some push back. "Why don't we do things the way we did before?" "This isn't as fun as the other way of doing things!" "I'm not so sure of this structure." And although all of these thoughts had gone through my head numerous times we were committed to a new direction because we wanted a new outcome and to get to a new outcome we needed to do things differently.

The season continued and some success was made but a lot of road blocks began to get bigger. We pushed on for about 6 months with our new structure and in the end we decided as a team that what we had done could not be sustained the way that we were doing it and we eventually decided to revert back to our old structure for the final two month stretch to the end of the season. In some ways this really felt like giving in BUT when we had reverted back to the old we realized that our goal was still attained even though we weren't sure that it initially was. Our end goal was to have greater participation within our whole group and in the final two months we saw that our leadership had multiplied greatly.

In the end what we had thought was a failure came through as a great success but that success was not clear at many points along the journey until the end. In fact any success seemed very distant at some points but as a team we came through.

At the end of the year as we reflect on where we came from and where we want to go there are still many steps to be taken in moving towards our goal but we are closer. I believe that we would not have been closer if we had not taken the bold steps we did to change our programming in order to change our outcomes. It wasn't easy and in fact my supervisor had many red flags but we did it and without much resistance I can call last year an outstanding accomplishment.

I write this to reflect that change is not easy. Change is seldom immediately positive. But with strong leadership, a great team and a determined goal change can lead, sometimes unobviously, to new and great outcomes.

The verse I read the other day that sums this all up under the always proclaimed lordship of Jesus in my life is Psalm 46.

Psalm 46

1 God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
    God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
    he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

7 The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

8 Come and see what the Lord has done,
    the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease
    to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.
10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”

11 The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

I trust that all we did was for 

the Glory of our risen Savior,

Jesus Christ our Lord