Finding the Oak Shoot

Will I ever get it?
Am I too influenced by what I read?
New ideas pour in and I agree and wonder how I can do that or adapt that into what we are doing, or radically change everything we've done so far to do that instead...

I just had a picture in my mind as I lay in bed - you know that state where your body is weary and heavy and comfortable, but your mind is wide awake and firing on all cylinders? This picture had to be written down, partly because I did not want to forget, and partly to soothe the gray cells in my head to the point where I could sleep.

I saw a yard. The background is that I have been reading for the class I'm taking, both the course notes and one of the texts, and each have provided me with images that have stuck in my head. One line in particular from tonight's reading in the text made me completely sure that our plans for the young adult ministry, while well thought out and worked through, and possibly even right, should maybe be approached in a completely differently way. I won't go into the details until I've had more of a chance to think it through, but it led to this picture. I won't go so far as to say a vision; I just think in images sometimes, and explore the possibilities.

So the yard. I am infinitely small, looking up to the great big sky, and all around are things growing, reaching up. The sky is God, and all these things are reaching and growing up to Him. So much of what is growing is grass. It is trimmed and nicely manicured, and only reaches so high. Some of it looks more like weeds - scruffy looking, but with a bloom. Some of it is attractive, but should it be nurtured, or is it really something that is going to suck the life dry, and end up withered? Some of what is growing are strong trees, that reach high, and expand, and produce new branches. I have in my care a group of people. I want for us to be a people that reaches up to God, yearning to stretch and grow. I don't want us to settle for being grass that stays safe within the trimmed limits. I don't want us to fit into a tidy box of programming with all the bases covered and nothing really happening other than staying a healthy green. I don't want us to latch onto one idea or catch phrase that is right but only part of the big picture, and then suffer from lack of the other things we need. I want us to find that sprout that is an offshoot of the oak. Something that we can start small with, but that has within it the right DNA to grow and reach closer to God than anything else. Something that will grow and multiply and become bigger than any of the parts could be alone, something that works together as one, unified in a common purpose, strong in love, and growing into the sun.

How does that WORK? What does that look like in my real job as pastor to young adults at my church? And so I pray. I have a deadline, but I do have time. It will simmer. The ideas will be discussed, options pondered, and prayed over. And God will lead. I pray we hear clearly.