reality blog

A BRIEF RETURN TO YOUTH MINISTRY

/ joseph elon lillie / 4 Comments

This summer, as my daughter entered her six weeks of radiation treatment after cancer surgery, I took over a few pieces of her church ministry. One of the ministries I have been covering this summer is youth ministry.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I was a youth minister for 19 years, but I have been retired from it for almost a decade. Which means the last time I seriously addressed this ministry I was still in my forties. Now as I approach sixty I am in a very different body than I was back then.

I knew going in that I was going to need to lean on the youth team in a way I never had before. Fortunately for everyone, my daughter has spent a good deal of time raising up a very talented and capable team of people to help lead our youth group.

This summer the brother and sister team of Trinity and Christian helped out. Trinity was our chief sound and media tech. Christian actually shared the preaching responsibilities with me and helped with games.

Troy operated as one of our games masters and an alternate media tech.

Patrick in the lower left hand corner of this picture was our worship leader.

And Pam, the lady on the right, was our chief administrator on site and called the weekly announcements for us. My daughter organized us each week, by making sure all of our supplies were set up weekly and by sending out the weekly duty roster for us. I was really just the pastoral presence in the room which was good because honestly I felt really rusty going in.

Still we managed to pull off the summer program and the fellowship trip to Kimball’s ice cream.

It was a very active summer.

We drew in some extra help for driving to the Kimball’s event. Carrie Hackett (pictured at the end of the table) stepped in with her car to help us get to Kimballs. Carrie is our adult Doing Life and outreach coordinator.

Sadie Bauver pictured here with the blue baton is one of our youth and she is finishing up the summer as our worship leader. I am finishing out the summer as the youth preacher. This has been an all hands on deck situation. I am so blessed that all the hands have risen up to help!

THE FOREST HEADING TOWARDS FALL

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We have had a bit of dismal weather at The Vicarage over the last several days. The raindrops interspersed around ministry have made it a bit difficult to accomplish some of the tasks I had set for myself this week.

I still haven’t finished chopping down the brush around the chicken paddock.

It’s about half done. Maybe I’ll get it finished today so we can start building the actual paddock.

The forest creatures have not been deterred in the slightest by the weather.

If their appetites are any indication it will be an early fall.

I wrote YESTERDAY about how the sense of impending fall is giving me an urgency about the chicken projects. That, and the fact that two of the chickens have made inroads into escaping from the playpen is giving me a bit of agita. I came home from CVS this morning to find that Squash and Eggplant were sitting on top pf the netting.

The garden is still blooming though.

White Flat Topped Aster is blooming all over the property.
This sweet autumn clematis has put in an appearance around the sumac.

The cone floors are also in full bloom.

A sure sign of fall is that the Japanese Knotweed is flowering too.

Some of these stalks are ten feet tall.

And this year I have a giant patch of jewelweed growing.

I will be harvesting some of this to make an anti itch tincture for the winter.

It’s all coming along. I am enjoying the fact that I am being more consistent with the property this year. That said I am hoping I can get everything done before the weather breaks.

DO YOU HAVE A SENSE OF URGENCY CONCERNING THE WEATHER THIS YEAR?

THE VICARAGE FALLS

/ joseph elon lillie / 5 Comments

I woke up this morning and noted that the house was chilly. For the first time in three months I can say I was cold. I was tempted to turn the heat on and then I realized….”THIS IS FALL WEATHER!”

WELL WE DON’T LOOK LIKE THAT YET! but the signs that The Vicarage is heading into an early fall are everywhere. The temperature is falling (today it is not slated to get out of the sixties around 18 for those of you who live in the metric system). Last week I noticed that the sumac in my back yard is already going orange, and the vegetables are slowing down in the garden. I have watched my YOUTUBE weather channels and they are leaning with me towards an early fall for New England.

With that knowledge, there are several mindset changes that I need to begin making:

Vicarage projects that were slated for the summer need to get done. It’s time to finish spreading the pea stone for the right hand drive. It’s time to finish the chicken paddock. It’s time to start burning that brush I collected all summer.

It’s time to get ready for the fall projects at The Vicarage. It’s almost time to put away the prayer tent and all the solar lights. It’s time to start thinking about winterizing the Vicarage again. It’s time to start thinking about what parts of the garden I will move inside. It’s time to start preparing for fall canning and freezing.

At church, fall always brings a shift in the mindset of people. Vacation is over and it’s time to get ready to get back into fall/ winter/ spring routines. Disciplines put by the wayside by many will be picked back up. As the back to school rhythm is restored some will also begin to experience a back to church rhythm. The church needs to be ready to minister to people who have been a bit out of the loop for the last twelve weeks.

We are also heading into high holiday season. Now is the time we begin making our Thanksgiving and Christmas plans. I will be on sabbatical for the month of October. This means September will be our planning month for the fall and winter holidays.

IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS FOLKS! WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FALL?

ALARMS AND CHICKEN ENLARGEMENTS

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This week my goal has been to begin clearing the land for the chicken paddock we are going to build. I have to cut back the bushes around the trees where the chicken coop sits.

All of this has to go and so does…

most of this.

My daughter asked me tonight how my week has been. My word was “constant”. It has not been a bad week. It has been a really good week actually. It has also been a constant work of preparing for ministry or working on little unexpected projects.

Today I had a small unexpected project pop up at the church. Our building and grounds crew has begun another project for then church. They are working on refurbishing the green room (which is a large meeting room with couches and a kitchenette. When it is all said and done, it is going to be amazing. This week the volunteer crew began taking down the popcorn ceilings which were put up in the 1980’s.

My friend and one of our deacons, Jody Clapp

All was going well until one of the smoke detectors got some of the oil being used to remove the ceiling goo on it. That set the fire alarm off which caused the alarm company to contact me (the lead contact on the fire alarm list) and then the fire department.

With the fire captain’s help we tried to reset the system to no avail. So the fire captain gave me instructions about how to clean the smoke detector. We got the alarm silenced (though we were unable to shut of the emergency strobes throughout the church) so I went home for lunch and to clean the chicken coop while Jody finished up the ceiling. Then I went back to the church and followed the instructions on cleaning up the smoke detector. It involved paper towels, Q-tips and a shop vac.

In the end, I got the detector cleaned, the fire alarm reset and I even got a wheel barrel load of brush cut from around the chicken coop. I feel really accomplished. Still, I can’t wait to get the chicken paddock built. It is a lot of work moving the chickens back and forth between their coop and their play pen.

WHAT PROJECTS ARE YOU WORKING ON AT YOUR HOME?