Philosophy?

So, I am "in the middle" of writing my Philosophy of Ministry paper... it's my last assignment of the semester and the only thing not done. It's due Thursday, but I wanted it done by tomorrow night, oh well. I'll have it done by the time it's due.

I'm just in a weird place and I feel like all I can do is pray about this paper... which is a good thing, right? Well, I guess... I just feel like I've changed my view of what I want to do in ministry several different times... As I was writing my spiritual autobiography, I found my journals from El Salvador and utilized them. I found one thing that said something about "being excited for Children's Ministry and pastorship." And at this point, I don't remember the last time I truly thought about "pastorship." I mean I guess I've thought about it as a stepping stone before I go into the missions field, but I haven't really thought about it in years.

Then, there's the whole missions thing. I used to have dreams about evangelism and the possibility of actually seeing hundreds of kids finding Jesus at a time. That's weird to me, because even in the past year when thinking of missions it would not have been on that scale. I would have just thought go overseas, work with kids. I did not necessarily know what I was going to do, but it would have been more of a teaching kind of ministry.

And now, I haven't really thought of my ministry in that light in probably six months. I want to work with kids in whatever way I can: feeding, clothing, housing, whatever. If that opened the door for me to talk about Jesus great! If it didn't, I'm still doing something good! I feel like I've almost cheapened my abilities and what I am supposed to do because I have been distancing myself from God.

Well, now, I'm at a point where I'm trying to open my life back up to God and not do the distancing thing. So where is my ministry focus and goals? I mean, I know that God gave me the words Reach, Serve, and Love. I know that I want to reach, serve, and love in whatever capacity, but it needs to be in order to activate a change towards Jesus in children's lives. How do I see that playing out in my life? I don't know... Do I still think it will be in a social justice manner? Probably, but I want to get back to the idea of sharing Jesus with kids, too, not just helping them out. I was looking at it like this: I want to help the kids holistically, except for spiritually unless I have to. THAT NEEDS TO BE THE WHOLE FOCUS! So I want to help kids holistically, with special emphasis on their spiritual life, but through helping them with the other areas of their lives.

Maybe I just figured out some stuff to write? We'll see when I actually write this paper...