Sharing Jesus

It's been kind of wierd lately, trying to share what I believe with a bunch of high school students, some of whom believe what I believe and some of whom adamantly believe something slightly but totally different. We got into Matthew 25 and the communion stuff there this week with my classes, and I can't really tell if it was a total fiasco or not yet. I'm trying to figure out the correct balance of what to teach and what to leave to the kids to find out for themselves. It's definitely a balance.

So with that as the backdrop, tonight I got to share Jesus in a very tangible way with someone. Anna and I went to the NYTE Life service (the Sunday evening service) at Abiding Savior, and we were doing communion by intinction (dipping the wafer in the wine). Anyway, some girl didn't have her wafer, and I was asked to break my "body" and share it with her. I did.

Right now I'm trying to figure out why that seemed to mean something to me. I got to share Christ's body with someone...yes...is it as simple as that?

Some of it is just the simple humility of being a person God is working through in a setting that seems very strange to me. I still feel very strange working at a Lutheran high school, especially since my high school experience was very much devoid of the Christian religion. Granted, it wasn't something that I ignored or that I didn't have faith or ever talk about it...it's just that my faith wasn't challenged to grow or fed very much during my teenage years, and so I'm kinda new to this whole thing now. I feel kind of like I'm caught up between youth group and high school, but I really believe that what I am doing is important, and so I keep slogging along.

I don't know who exactly is reading this, but I will ask you to pray for me and this calling that I have...that I can give a clear and understandable and honest representation of faith in Christ and let my students be able to leave here knowing Him. I'm already seeing some fruit, but it's still hard to get up and be motivated to go and do it again every day. Right now I'm trusting God to get me through each day, relying on His strength to get me through my weakness.

California in September

Well, I'm here in Cali and my life feels like it is on that part of the Shockwave rollercoaster (Six Flags- Great America in Gurnee, Illinois) where you're going downhill really fast and it's about to turn and whip you around.

So I'm being whipped around. My wife can be happy, I'm finally seeing all the work that goes into teaching...and I'm only teaching one class (albeit 6 times). Nobody warned me that assigning work means you have to grade work, and when you have between 24 and 28 people in each class, that's a lot of work to correct.

It's also difficult to be working on the block schedule, in some ways. I can't just say "do this worksheet" and then do a worksheet every day. On that side of things, I'm feeling like God is really humbling me because I *thought* (coming out of vicarage) that teaching was one of my strengths. Well, I'm finding that I have a lot of work to do. Granted, I'm in an awesome place to learn how to be a better teacher with great support (granted, they've got a lot invested in me too...paying a pastor instead of a simple teacher.)

On the upside, I love coaching here, the kids are great, coaching with Jack is wonderful, and I'm finding that we compliment each other well. Abiding Savior is an awesome church, and even in the month that we've been here, Anna and I have been really included and accepted into the church. I really appreciate the Minister of Outreach here and our small group that meets on Tuesdays at his house, and it's great to get away from Lutheran High every once in a while and talk to someone different.

That said, there's a lot of work to be done. I'm being given an opportunity to team-teach my 5th period class with another teacher who's been here for 7 years now, which I'm looking forward to. Just to have someone to be there to help me grow as a teacher is a wonderful blessing, and I think he's excited both to be able to help me learn more of the ins and outs of teaching and I think he's excited to have some help teaching the class too, since he's mostly taught other classes in his time here.

One more note...Freshmen guys won the freshman race at Woodbridge. Sophomore boys would have gotten 2nd to San Diego High by about 12 points in their race had Cameron, Sam, and Matt run in that race instead of the sweepstakes race. We ended up getting 21st out of 22 in the sweepstakes race, and Big Bear beat us. Good. We needed some motivation. Actually, we need to move up a class, but whatever. It was a great day, we had like all but 3 runners PR.

Tomorrow the work continues.