Learning leadership is never easy

You, most of the time, learn it the hard way.

The campus ministry has been up and going. In its second week, things are doing well. I believe and hope we already have a handful of committed students in the group. Now the youth cellgroups are taking yet another transformation.

Our youth group is composed of 3 subgroups meeting together in the church. Now, I've decided to set the leaders with their own group to meet in the vicinity - not inside the church. The youth group, for years, resisted cell-multiplication and meeting outside which entails evangelism. We became comfortable meeting together like there is no room for others to come in the group. We became stagnant; and stagnant waters breeds parasites. A chance for my leaders to learn responsibility and exercise their leadership, without my unsettling 'interference' for I am a self-admitted control freak.

Is this a wise decision? Their first week only a handful of their members joined the 'cellgroup outing' we scheduled for this week to give them a break after taking a 16-week series on the 16 Fundamental Truths of AG. Suprisingly, the youth is not thrilled in day outings more than a time of Bible study. I guess what they needed more was a break.

Is my control-freakiness rearing its head again... But I need to set them loose, learn from their own experiences to become a leader who is responsible and accountable to their flock. Do I want them to be like me? Yes and No. There is some reservations on my part that keeps me from obliging them and 'follow their dreams...' Is this a right way of thinking?

I remember last Thursday when I was in campus ministry in a Filipino high-school, a student posed to me a question: "Why did I choose to do ministry instead of pursuing Architecture?" Seems a very easy question with a very easy answer for me - This is my passion. But explaining this logically to a poverty-stricken Filipino student seemed impossible. Being in a setting where at a young age, students deal with serious family problems, drugs, poverty and gender-confusion, makes me overwhelmed and find my self helpless to help them. These are the times where praying with them and for them are the only means of help, until God shows me what I should say and do.