A Challenging but Good Season of Ministry

 

It’s odd that some seasons of life can be difficult while you’re going through them, but when you look back you realize it was a time of great growth and change. That must be what James was thinking of while writing the opening to his letter. "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Though so many times I wish that wasn’t true, I’ve continually found that it is. The Core that I help lead has been working through James this semester and this opening set of verses is something that keeps coming back to me.

This season of ministry hasn’t been the hardest by any means, but it has certainly had its ups and downs, and they’ve often been connected. For example, just last week I had to have one of the hardest conversations with a student that I’ve had in months, maybe years. We both left that conversation drained and emotional. But already I’ve started to see what God was bringing about through it. God used that conversation to bring things to light in both me and the student. The student is processing finding their value in God and not in other people and their opinions. I’ve been learning to process my emotions more and express them to God without being guarded.

Another example is our room situation for our large group meeting. We’ve found working with the university to be increasingly hard over the last couple months (years really). It has meant we keep jumping from room to room for our fellowship nights. It has been very hard to find a space that can fit 160 students every single week. But through that we’ve landed at meeting at TWU instead of UNT and have absolutely loved the room we’ve found. God has been so faithful with the whole situation over the last couple months. It seems that every week we think we’ll be without a room, and every week He comes through.

Our yearly Showcase event was a ton of work as always. For many of our staff it means pulling a 16hr day and sometimes a 50-60hr work week leading up to it. Although it was difficult leading up, the event went great, and we raised around $26,000 to send students to SICM! Once again God was faithful through something that seemed difficult on the front end. Over and over, I have been seeing Him do that throughout this season. Well, really just throughout my life. My prayer is that we can start to live in a constant awareness of the faithfulness of God, especially through seasons of difficulty. I’ve been seeing signs that there are more hard conversations and things to come this semester, so I’d love your prayers while going into that!