Catch Up

A lot has happened since the last post I made over a month ago. I had been thinking about whether or not I should keep the blog going, and now have decided to go ahead, but maybe with a little different purpose. The purpose was for parents to see what was going on in Jr. High Ministry at Harvest Fellowship. Here's some update to why that needs to change.
The Thursday before Thanksgiving, I was pulled into the executive pastor's office. In there with him was the senior pastor and the high school pastor. I had a great morning, and we had a great Wed. night the night before, and I was in a great mood. I knew the church was having some financial problems, so when I was called into his office, I knew it was probably going to be bad. I was preparing myself for a 10% pay cut, which they had done to me 2 years earlier. I was in such a good mood, that I really wasn't too upset about that.
The first thing they said to me was that they were having to lay off 4 people, and that I was one of them. I couldn't believe it. The junior high ministry was basically one of the only ministries in the church that was growing and the only one doing any kind of ministry outside of the walls of the church building.
The second thing I couldn't believe is that they let me go instead of the high school pastor who had only been there 2 months, who has no experience as a youth minister. He was a volunteer, and he's great, but he has no experience in youth ministry and leading a group the size of the youth ministry at Harvest.
Needless to say, I was pretty hurt by this and angered by it. I disagreed with a lot of the things the pastor was doing, and instead of speaking up, I kept quiet and focused on youth ministry. I think that was my downfall, because many of the other people didn't know me. The men who made the decision to lay me off didn't know what I had been doing for the last 3 years. The new high school pastor had been at the church for 10 years and knew everybody, and everybody liked him.
The crappy thing is that the pastor was responsible for the financial problems due to some poor decisions on his part. The executive pastor is just as responsible because he was just a glorified "yes man" who tried to make the bad decisions work instead of fighting against them. Because of their work about 25 people have been laid off in the course of a couple of months, because they closed the school down in October.
So, now I am looking for new ministry to be a part of. I think this is actually going to be a blessing because I'm getting out of there. It's been a while since I trusted the senior pastor's leadership. And really should someone be on a church's staff when they don't trust the senior pastor. I had been struggling with that for a while. The only thing is that I can't imagine a better group of youth or of youth workers. They were amazing. I know God is still going to bless the youth ministry because of the workers that are there. I'm going to miss the kids and the volunteers a lot.
So, now I'm a stay-at-home dad looking for a new ministry to become a part of. We're praying that God will lead us back to California. We haven't heard much yet because churches are super busy this time of the year with Christmas extravaganzas, so I imagine the job search will heat up after the New Year.
I'm going to keep this blog up, mainly for myself, to give me something to do. I'll talk about the job search and the things Parker and I get ourselves into. If you are reading this, I hope that you will become a follower of the blog, just so I'll know if anybody is ever reading the stuff that I post.
Hope you guys are having a great Christmas so far.