Saturday was an outreach event that I have been working on for a few months now. It was nothing big... The idea was a "Luke 5 party" (I know Cheesy name). I lined up enough food for about 100 people. Considering that our church is only 50 people .... on a good Sunday... it seemed possible to have 100 people. If everyone brings just one friend we would run out of food... it would have been great! There was also live music and games. It was a great idea.
The Monday before the event, I got a call from one of the guys who was going to be playing the live music. He had to work. The weeks momentum continued and concluded with all but one person backing out of the music. So it left me and one other guy with 4 hours of music to play. Now, I am not very talented when it comes to music. I did a 6 month worship/youth ministry internship in high school... I quickly learned that music is not my thing. The other guy is talented but has never played or sung in front of people... we did about 2 hours of music and played Cd's for the rest of the time... That part went well...
The bad thing was that only our church members came. I heard grumbling about how we didn't promote it enough throughout the community. I said from day one that I would not hang a flyer. If I were not involved in the church, I would not go to a persons home for a cookout if the only invitation I received was on my windshield. I promoted the idea of personally asking one person each to come, and following through with them... It didn't happen.
There was no outreach. No evangelism. No sharing the Gospel. It made me sad.
(It was great fun, don't get me wrong. But my enjoyment was not the mission. The mission was to share Jesus.)
So Saturday came and went.
Sunday morning I was to preach. I did terrible. I know that. I started to look out at the crowd and ask myself, "have I made a difference?", "have I done my job?". I'm sad to say.... not the way it should have been done. I wish I could have done things differently. I saw joy, relief, and sorrow expressed through the faces I preached to. The final stab was the fact that I had to explain what grace was to one of my students Sunday night. After nearly two years, this child being there EVERY Sunday that I was there, and he had no idea what grace was! I know I have taught about it! I have explained it! I thought that everyone could tell me what it was, but this one child could not. Wow...
With that said, I will deeply miss several from my church (well I guess it's not mine anymore).
Now I sit thinking about my graduation in just over one week. I think about all the time I have wasted here at JBC. I think about the friendship that I have wasted here. It breaks my heart to think that for the last four years, I have made very few strong friendships. I have been so judgmental, so individualistic, so selfish... I have robbed myself from the gift of friendship.
I have made friendships with people here but I have undoubtedly left them hanging in the air for some time now and unfortunately there is no time to continue them. I wish there was a way for me to apologize to all of those who I have failed to connect with. I wish I would have done things differently. I wish I hadn't robbed myself from the pleasure of knowing so many who I haven't connected with.
It makes me think. How have I done with God. I have wasted time with him. I have not glorified him with all that I do. I have not been the man that I am called to be. My relationships are proof of that. I have learned much, much from failure.
I'm still repeating the words of King Jehoshaphat, "[I] don't know what to do but [my] eyes are upon you".
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