Only Time will tell

I have been a minister in the Catholic Church for 19 years, always dealing with the youth of our faith. One of the main reasons I love to deal with the youth is the fact that politics are not as prominent. That is mostly true, sure you always have parish politics, but as a religious education teach or youth minister, and as a volunteer, I really didn’t have to deal with the politics of parish religion too often. That is until now. It seems my parish lives on this, politics almost seem more important that the faith itself.

The front office treats the politics as a religion, and it is taking its toll on me. Now add to that the politics of friendship with in my ministry and it all becomes too much. That is where I am at; I have to deal with politics on all sides. Now understand that I know it is part of the job, it comes with being a servant with in the Catholic Church, but for some reason I just don’t want to deal with it. There is just too much going on in my life; I don’t need the added pressure.

This is the dilemma I am dealing with, how do I dance the political dance, and keep my sanity and drive for what I do? I love dealing with the kids, they bring joy to my life and I hope I do the same for them. But the office politics seems to be taking the joy out of it. And I just don’t seem to care anymore. How sad! But that’s my life at this time.

I am currently in prayer over what to do; I know that at this time I have to desire to return next year as youth minister. Now this is for several reasons, one being that my job now requires me to travel much more than in the past, but it is also the politics of the church and of friendship. Add to that, that I and my friend also own a company that produces, what we consider, the best religious education programming on earth, and we hope to expand it to many more parishes in the coming year. To do this we both need to break away from our youth ministry responsibilities at our parish.  This is much easier for me than her, she is also the Religious Education Director at the parish, and so her responsibility can’t end, but must shift and take on a new direction.

There is no easy way to do this, if I stay I am concerned that I will not do the best I can, if I leave I fear I will not be doing what God want. If I stay I fear my friendship will end, and if I go I fear the same.

So I will pray some more, and hope to see a sign or two from God along the way. But as it stands now, I will not return next year as youth minister, I do feel that is the direction God wished me to take, but who knows I see signs telling me to stay, but I doubt it.

I think my time has come to move in new directions, to serve God in new and challenging ways, only time will tell…

Paul