Twilight Zone
Leading a ministry can often seem like the Twilight Zone. Let me share with you a few of the unusual experiences i’ve had lately and my thoughts on what I’ve learned.
A preteen on the front row took off his shirt displaying his bare chest for all to see…in the middle of the message.
A preteen, who I am pretty sure has ADD along with some other issues, throws his shoes from the back of the room to the front during a message. He’s got a strange expression on his face, which is a weird mixture of “oops” and “I am in la la land right now”.
A preteen curls up on all fours, starts to moan and makes strange moaning noises during small group.
A preteen at the rec center happens to see a friend through the window in X-Zone (the name of our preteen group). He comes upstairs with mom and 3 year old sister. Mom hangs around awhile to check us out and asks when the “teaching Jesus” stuff stops so her son can hang out and play video games. The three year old girl randomly runs through the audience while making odd noises during the message.
A preteen has anger management issues coupled with extreme sensitivity issues often bursting out in random fits of screaming & crying. And he comes to camp with you…YAY!
A ten year old girl gets stuck in the bathroom for twenty minutes because the door got jammed.
Okay, does my preteen group have issues? Yes! But my guess you’ve experienced odd things in your ministry as well. I don’t think I am alone (or am I?). And like me, you do what is needed to each situation as it arises.
Since experiencing many unusual incidents like these lately, I am learning a few things about leadership. Here they are:
1. Plan for the worst and expect the best.
Have a positive attitude expecting the best. Expect God to show up and lives to be changed. But always plan for the worst. Have a backup plan if a volunteer calls you the night before because her son is sick. Have a backup plan for when the PowerPoint slideshow you worked on for hours stops working for no apparent reason. Don’t be shocked when all doesn’t work out as planned. Something always seems to go wrong. Always plan for the worst case scenario. But always expect the best!
2. Go With The Flow
Go with the flow and learn to develop a sense of humor. Don’t let strange things throw you out of whack. It goes with the territory. Just expect odd things to happen every once in a while. Best of all, blow off some steam and blog about it. People are always looking for a good laugh 🙂
Random funny story. We once had a contest that lasted for weeks in our preteen room. The winner would get a Playstation. Excitement and anticipation were at an all time high. I was sitting with a group of kids talking about the contest. I said how excited I was to be giving away a free PLAYBOY to the winner. Yikes! To make things worse, a mom was right next to me when I said it. Oh boy! Good thing she had a sense of humor. Not quite sure why I said PLAYBOY instead of PLAYSTATION! I could have let that slip really trip me up. But I didn’t. You’re going to say stupid things sometimes. Weird things are going to happen.
I would love to hear your “Twilight Zone” moment. Make a comment below and share with us all what happened. I’m feeling lonely, am I the only one with strange things happening?