1:37 in the AM.

Sometimes I can't sleep.

I have blamed it on my bed for a long time, and I still hold to that to some level. I think tonight I'm just not in the zone for sleep. I'm a little wired after youth tonight. So I'm up eating Breyers Double Churned Extra Creamy Natural Vanilla ice cream. I think that's about as vanilla as it's going to get. My dad would be proud.

My mind is mulling over all the events of the day and the coming events of the fall. Youth ministry brings a lot of thoughts this time of year. (I'm such a veteran :)ha!)I have this anticipation building up inside of me as I see our group molding together and things coming together for this school year ahead. And I love the people I do youth ministry with. 5 of us just stayed after all the students left tonight and played hide and seek, and with the lights off it turned into a big game of "throw stuff at each other". If I could say one thing to someone asking about how to work with a team of leaders, it would be "have illegal amounts of fun together". Especially a youth ministry team.

Before I sign off tonight I want to recommend to any church/ministry leaders reading a book called, "Practicing Passion: Youth and the quest for a passionate Church" by Kenda Creasy Dean. It's really energized my thoughts lately. The author's guiding conviction is this:

If the church is going to make sense to adolescents, then our ministry must be predicated on passion - the Passion of Christ, the passion of youth, and the passionate faith that is made possible when these two things come together.

The author says that for long the church has stifled the passion of youth by not involving them in the mission of the Church, and not taught them a theology of dying. That Christ's Passion was to the death, and that the faith we want is one that we would die for. So yeah check it out - it reads like a text book with deep insight into scripture and the practices of youth ministry in history.

Welp, I'm signing off here. Maybe sleep will come ... adios!