Passion

Does a person's passions always need to fit what they are doing in life? I always use to think that yes it should. But that was before. Before growth. Before change. And definitely before God put us where we were.

Mark has a deep passion in his heart to work with youth. WHATEVER age of youth they are. And yet is he in the wrong place and doing the wrong thing if he is not carrying out that passion? I think not. See God gives us those passions, but he also places us in situation that may not fit those passions. Then he gives us new passions and new loves. We still have the first ones in our hearts, they are still a part of who we are, and yet God is developing new things in us as well. God is willing to give us the time to grow and develop. He is willing to allow us to make mistakes. He wants to do this because he knows that everything we do is for HIM. The perfect love of God wants us to discover new passions and new gifts. He wants us to find new ways that we can serve Him. The heart of man however seems to only want people who have already developed into a 'perfect' person, and whose passion is only directed one way.

Ridgeview is a unique church for us. The youth is what brought us there, but it is not what kept us there. What kept us there is the new passions that God was developing in our hearts. I would have never sought out doing women's ministry. Yet it was a need and I began doing it with someone else. It was something I grew to love doing. Something I now have a passion for. A passion that grew in me. God did that. I know that I'm not the best at it, but yet God is at work there, in me, to do things. Mark has always had a passion for worship. That passion also was given an opportunity to grow at this church. Again he may not be the best at it, but God is working and growing. Who knows what might have happened if along with that passion Mark had also had the opportunity to have more teaching in that area. Who knows what might have been if he had had more musicians behind him. Who knows what Mark may have been able to do with some guidance for how to better use that passion.

Although there was not a lot of youth to fulfill that passion in our hearts we never once considered that we were in the wrong place. Indeed our outlook of the church was probably more healthy because we were seeing the church more as a whole. We were ministering to everyone in the church. And we were loving it. Mark's passion to work with youth was being fulfilled in ways outside of the church. This was also great because it meant that we were serving in the community and the world, not just in our church. No one wants a pastor who is not reaching out through other avenues to minister. Our love for youth was being fulfilled. And God was giving us new loves, and we wanted to be open to what He was bringing us, to the ministries that HE wanted us to do. If only everyone understood that God has bigger things for people than to be concentrated on only one area.

God desires us to have a picture of the church as a whole, not just a part. We learned that very quickly. Most people desire that whoever is in charge of Children's Ministry will also consider the worship, the teaching, the adults, etc, and how what they are doing in Children's Ministry will affect all those other areas of the church. You don't want someone who is so concentrated on Children's Ministry that they don't care about anything else. The same is true of the Senior Pastor, the welcoming committee, the women's ministry and the worship. Your worship person should be in tune to the church as a whole and serving all of them. Do people really want someone who is only concentrating on the worship ministry and not any other area???

I guess in our circumstance the answer to this is, yes.