When you've got it, you've...got it...right?

A bustling hive of activity. A chaotic community center. A program sized church who it trying to figure out how to be something "else." All of these fit the bill for St. Andrew's church on St. Thomas. I spent the weekend with my friend Lenroy Cabey and the parishioners of St. Andrew's.
So here's a church that has a split personality...between, "We do pretty well here, " and "We could be doing better here."
It's a healthy place, the way churches go, and there's some good points to their life that my skill sets and experience might be able to help with. More on that later. But what did i learn from St. Andrew's that is a positive influence on me? How about how it's kind of cool to be the only light skinned person in town, because everyone can recognize you and say hello? Or that the real way to move forward in ministry to the people of the Church is to manage the growth and death process of projects.
If you start a project with your own needs in mind as a priority, then you've just created something that is so close to you it can run the risk of BECOMING your identity. Which also means that the project or program is tied so closely to you that it NEEDS YOU to run it. What happens if you leave? Get burnt out? upset the Rector? Tic off the wrong mom? It's not you that suffers the most, its the collected souls involved in your program that you didn't think of.
So when you grow a program, itis not enough to think of simply "how to grow it," but you must also think of "how to kill your involvement with it." Do you train others to run this thing with you? Do you create a team of people that run it with seamless authority across multiple persons? Do you do a third option that doesn't come to mind right now...
Growth and Death...we are a resurrection people...birth and rebirth are "supposed" to be the thing that sets us apart...where our hope rests, and in which knowledge we find peace. But instead o fliving this life, we grab and stranglehold things until we or it becomes ineffective. God help me plant a new church ideal amongst the youth workers of St. Andrew's, because they deserve it.
here are some projects i'd like ot take at St. Andrew's, once i've cleared them with Fr. Cabey:
4. Does the after school program truly reflect the needs of the community? If not (which seems to be truth) what can we do to make it THE place to hang out after school?
3. Training for church school teachers (and other adult sponsors), who aren't trained teachers, and don't seem to be mentoring their students..rather they are just talking to them.
2. Anglican youth organization - does it refelct the needs of the teenagers @ St. Andrew's, or is justa model based on the best experience of the adults?
1. Social Justice Ministries. To get the teens thinking about serving the community in real ways, teaching people to fish...not just giving them fish to eat.

Works cut out for me, eh?