starting again

when i first got at parkview our wednesday night youth worship service had about 15 to twenty youth coming. it was a small intimate group within a large church (about 1500 average worship). over the next several years the group started growing in numbers and hopefully most importantly spiritually. for almost five years the youth ministry has been booming even though our church has had some serious issues over the past year. two months ago we would had around 100 kids at our wednesday night. of course, two months ago our church had a small split (about 300 people left - though very few youth) this whole thing hadn't affected the youth ministry too much because we really didn't lose any kids directly from it and very few of their parents left (i personally encourage all our kids to go to and be committed to their parents' church). that was until hurricane katrina. katrina kicked out butts. we had to move the locations that we used over a month or so. on top of this the church's wednesday night bible study went south very quickly. so the numbers slide began. tonight we had 32 (plus 4 adults who stayed outside and talked). it's a very different feel. i'm not a big numbers guy but it definitely feels strange missing half the normal room. this week is homecoming week for one of our main schools and i know that was some of it but i honestly believe that we will probably start averaging around 50.

i don't know what GOD's plans are right now with our wednesday nights. the wried thing is that i am kind of excited about whatever is going to happen. i can't completely understand it. i guess some of it is that i feel the whole thing is going to force me to depend even on GOD for whatever is going to happen. some of it also may be that it is going to force me to push some limits and try some new things. i don't know what the future holds but for some reason it doesn't seem that bad.