Trapped?

Went to Winnipeg this summer for two weeks of summer school. This was at our denomination Bible college there (okay, yes, it is the Salvation Army). Came home with a sense of feeling trapped. I don't want to sound too judgemental, because there were some great people there, but as I looked around and listened to what some of the people were saying I thought 'is this something I want to be a part of for the rest of my life?' Scary thoughts, as this has been my life.

Trapped? This would suggest that I'm somewhere that I don't want to be, but that's not really how I feel. In spite of the fact that I have joked to my wife that if I was able to choose I wouldn't go to the church that we pastor, I do love the people there (even though most of them are older than my parents - hey, they need Christ, too!).

Anyway, I think that someone may have unlocked the trap door and hidden the key. For four years of being here a lot of what we have had to do has been the joy of administration (if you don't know me - I have the gift of sarcasm), refereeing fights, trying to run outdated programs and running out of steam. Much of this may have led to the retreat into the trap, but we're going to escape that trap! Someone has stepped forward who really enjoys that administrative stuff and offered to take a large chunk of it out of my hands. Most of the scrappers have found other congregations to fight with. Some people have discovered that if they want their cherished program to operate in the way they want it to be that the easiest way to do this is to offer to take on the leadership and this has started to happen. A number of people have stepped forward and offered their homes as venues for small groups - no more shivering in the cold church basement with a handful of the 'faithful' this winter!

Then last night my wife came home from taking our daughter to her swimming club and said that quite a number of the parents there want to talk about God. They don't want to do the church thing in the traditional sense, but just want to hang out and talk about life and how God fits into that today. So my wife just said, yeah, that's soemthing my husband has been wanting to do for ages.

So, the door of the trap has opened. All I have to do now is to step out...