Report #4

This week for Body shop we had more meetings than usual as we are focusing even stronger as leaders. We had an hour long lunch the day of CRASH (the Wednesday night ministry) as leaders and discussed in detail how we were going to cover over the message and the discipleship groups properly. We discussed tying the discussions together properly in order to communicate to the kids in a clear way. We brain stormed creative ways to communicate and help the kids understand. Before CRASH started I showed up an hour early, at 5pm, and led a prayer group. We prayed around the building, over each room, for the leaders and for the kids. We spent an hour covering the ministry in prayer. At 6:15 the doors opened and we started service. From 6:15 to 8:00pm I helped the kids engage in worship through song and pay attention to the message given. Within this time period me and 3 other leaders led the boys in a discipleship group discussing being a living sacrifice to the Lord. After the Discipleship group was done we hung out with the kids by playing dodge ball. When the kids went home and cleared the building by 8pm, all the volunteers went out to relax at Dairy Queen for about an hour.

This week was our first time meeting an hour early for prayer like we did. Although there were only 3 of us, I felt a stronger focus in the ministry for my heart personally. I have learned that praying with others over a ministry helps my heart focus in on what I am actually doing the whole ministry for. In prior weeks I felt like I was simply spending a few hours out of my week to hang out with middle school kids. This time, I saw seriousness in other volunteers through sacrifice of an extra hour and sincerity through their prayers. This was a huge encouragement to me this week. Last week we had a large problem with all the volunteers in one discipleship group. This week we had a specific select few to lead the one group. This group was me and 3 other leaders and it helped a large amount. It was more controled. We still had glitches but it was much improvement from last week. Our communication has been 90% better sinse we brought it up and discussed it. So the communication allowed the ministry to flow with more understanding from one another as leaders.

Honestly, my spiritual life hasn't mean struggling to stay strong, but it has been being attacked lately. My friend back home hung himself over Fall Break and thats truly impacted my heart and bummed me a little bit. I found that the prayer before CRASH helped me focus. Leaders prayed over me so that I could focus on those who were there and it helped a lot! CRASH ended up being a highlight of my spirituality for the week. I have been klinging to the Proverbs lately and they have been teaching me how to be wise in the hard times with what I saw and how to act around others. So, this week has been rough but it is a small taste of what is to come in the future.