The Inchworm Meter

This weekend was filled with what can provisionally be called “progress” with a couple churches:

I had a phone interview with Fellowship Connection Church of Gilbert, AZ that went pretty well.  He was impressed by my questionnaire answers, but I couldn’t really back up some of my stuff very well on the phone.  I have this habit of knowing what the right thing to say is, knowing what I should be telling someone, but being powerless to properly express it in words.  Sigh.  Anyway, they seem mildly interested and will hopefully get back to me soon.  The great part about possibly landing that job would be the opportunity to work under a former youth pastor plus learn about church planting along the way.

I filled out another questionnaire for a place called Our Lord’s Community Church in Oklahoma City.  Apparently they’re interested in my services because of my inner-city experience.  Apparently they have a new “urban high school in their suburban neighborhood” which to me screams “Our church is full of rich white kids who go to private school, and we want you to try and integrate some public school kids.”  Not that I shy away from the challenge, but I can tell you right now, their few things harder than making a kid from a lower income bracket or from a minority group feel comfortable in a preppy church, believe me, I’ve seen it attempted.  Anyway, I hope to hear back from them, but I won’t be too sad if I don’t get a job there, I’m not sure if I’d fit in.

I’ll possibly be flying to Lake Charles, LA sometime in mid-April to meet with the pastor of First UMC there.  Apparently he’s just averse to phone interviews and is wanting to bring in several candidates on the same day for face-to-face interviews, so I don’t feel too special, but it is still kind of cool.  Free trip to Louisiana, right?

That’s about that as far as churches go.  On a more personal note, life her at the temporary home is absolute hell.  We’re currently living at H’s grandfather’s house until our wedding day, and until recently, the grandfather has been staying with his girlfriend and few towns over.  Well, they broke up, and the half senile and entirely inconsiderate old man back living here and smoking up a storm.  This has caused both me and H to take refuge in a small room with a bit of semi-permenance.  Add this most recent revelation to the fact that H’s mother has been staying with us as well for the last two months or so, and you can see how I may be at my wit’s end.  Both of us are in fact.  I have 19 days until I’m married . . . it can’t come soon enough.

Ergonomic

Title un-related, I just like that word.

So, we can cross Griffith Community Christian Church of the “mildly interested” list, I got a lovely “we’ve decided to go another direction” letter from them.  On the upside, through phone interviews today, I was able to add two churches to the list:

Crossview Fellowship, Keokuk, IA – Unfortunately, this one got crossed off the list almost as soon as it was added.  They called early today and I had a phone interview that went pretty well, except that I was informed they were mildly charismatic.  This would be cool, except I’m not charismatic, never have been, and would have no idea how to teach the theology.  So, this one is going to have to be turned down, regardless of whether they want me or not.  I didn’t have a chance to tell them to pull my name out of the drawing, but the pastor acknowledged my shortcomings in that area as well, so I’m pretty sure we’re on the same wavelength on this.

Fellowship Connection Church, Gilbert, AZ – Now, this one is really exciting.  This is a church plant, 40 some attendees at the moment, and two staff members.  Right now, it’s a tent-making effort, all the staff are working full-time jobs outside the church, which is what I’d be expected to do as well.  The thing is though, the guy I’d work for has been a youth pastor, he’d be a brilliant mentor if I get the position.  Plus, I’d learn a little about church planting, which is never not a plus.  Like I told the pastor, I’m looking to do youth ministry and get paid, but I don’t necessarily have to get paid for youth ministry.  This would be a pretty kickin’ opportunity, plus, I’ve never been to AZ before.  We had our phone interview today, so we’ll see how this one develops.

Well, that was my day.  And I have a cold.  On a side note, cuddle time with the girl has increased, which I believe is making both of us a bit happier.

Phase 3

So, I finished Phase 3 of “Operation Resume Zerg!” which I think is a pretty awesome name I just made up, so there’s that.  Basically, I sent out another ton of resumes, and now I’m going to take a break and sit back and see where they go.  One of the main reasons that I’m so gung-ho about this whole job thing, and I think why I’ve begun to take the rejections mildly personally is because my wedding is so close.  My goal was to have a job lined up, ready to go so that after I got married, we’d load our things into a U-Haul and drive into oblivion.  This plan, while good in theory, is not working out and so with every passing day, I have felt a bit more stress to accomplish my goal.  Yesterday, H and I had a conversation about what we would do if I didn’t have a job by the 8th and she immediately suggested moving back down to Southern IL.  There I have family, we could be somewhat stable, costs would be low and we could both work while I continued the job hunt.  I think what surprised me the most was that she was happy about what she was saying, and I’m pretty sure that it was at that point I realized having a job come the 8th wasn’t that big of a deal.  So I’m starting to feel a little relieved, the edge is starting to come off, and I’ve accepted the fact that a position will come along when the right church needs me.  That doesn’t keep me from wanting that church to spring up now, but I’m still a bit better off than I was.  Keep praying . . .

Oh, I have name the new car Captain Stubing, that is all.

Why it sucks . . .

Holding onto patience, wearing thin
I can’t force these eyes to see the end
if only time flew like a dove
we could watch it fly and just keep looking on – Paramore, “Hallelujah”

I’m up in the air about the part that sucks most about this whole job-hunting ordeal. One of the front-runners is the fact that I wake up every single morning to multiple letters of rejection. There’s nothing better than rolling out of bed and seeing that you have been deemed inadequate to perform your life’s calling by a couple more people. It’s a real confidence booster to start your day. Not only that, but the internet has developed this nefarious plot where it delivers e-mails full of rejection at sporadic points throughout the day, just in case I ever decide to start thinking highly about myself. At the exact same level of sucktitude is the time-killer that is applying to all these places. It’s bad enough that H has complained that I’ve been ignoring her. So I got up at seven this morning, and worked on the stupid applications and such until slightly before four ‘o clock. Finding them is difficult enough, and until recently has been the biggest drain on my time. Then, once I find a posting for a position, I have to go to their website, make sure the position is still open, fill out any special applications they may have, then send that in along with my resume and a form cover letter I’m using. So, if the church has no special application, that’s five minutes of work, probably that long even if I don’t end up applying to the position or it has already been filled. If they have a special application, it jumps to 15 minutes to an hour, depending on how in-depth the application is. To some people, the massive amount of time spent pointing and clicking and repeated pressing of Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V might not be too bad, but I’m a grownup with ADD. I have to do something else, I have to have something entertaining my brain, and scanning page after page of job listings doesn’t much do it. I get antsy and have to force myself to be sitting in the same place, which is never really conducive to doing good work.

I guess, in short, it’s a long, boring process which has done nothing but make me feel like a rejected loser up to this point, and I occasionally question whether or not it’s worth it.

The Rundown, or, Beginning the Trek

So, I graduated from school, I have this handy Biblical Studies degree, and I want to be a Youth Pastor. This is how it’s gone so far. In the last three months, I have sent out a total of 52 e-mails to churches that I’ve found with Youth Pastor job listings on several websites. Of these 52, somewhere around 28 have responded and not yet been filled. So that’s 28 resumes in the hands of people who make decisions. Chronicled here: The positive responses.

Fellowship Community Christian Church, Tacoma, WA: These folks were actually the first to call around two weeks ago. In our first phone discussion, I had a small interview, and they immediately wanted to fly the fiance and I out to Tacoma for face to face interviews. They were going to call the next day to cement a date. H (the fiance) and I were VERY excited, to say the least. When the next day came, the date issue was skirted, and I was given a bit of an assignment/questionnaire to do for them as they checked my references and so on. Five days went by without hearing from them again, but they called me again late this week and stated that another candidate had appeared and would be visiting with them this month. They’ll call me in April and tell me if he worked out or not. Now, this job is not actually gone, per se, but it went from being in the palm of my hand to something entirely ethereal in the course of one 3-minute phone conversation. I haven’t completely given up on it, but I’m not holding my breath. I wasted a lot of excitement on this one.

Griffith Christian Church, Griffith, IN: These folks were second, they reviewed my resume last Sunday and sent me a questionnaire to be filled out and supposedly looked at today. I haven’t heard anything back from them quite yet. I don’t know if this is a good or a bad sign. I’m hoping I’m not in the tall stack of “e-mail these losers tomorrow” but in the tiny stack of “e-mail this exciting dude right now and get him over here!”

Eastwood PCA, Montgomery, AL: How humorous would it be if I ended up back in the south? Anyway, these folks sent me an e-mail saying that they were reviewing multiple resumes and would make a decision by April 1. This is a little late for me, but still possible within my time frame (i.e. knowing where I’m going by the time I’m married on April 5). Considering the succinctness of the e-mail though, I’m not holding my breath on it.

Gateway Community EPC, Slippery Rock, PA: Now, this one excites me for many reason. 1. It’s EPC, it fits right in with how I’ve been raised and what I’m comfy with, me and the higher ups would have very few issues. 2. Visit the churches website. Is there anything about their goals, about the way they’re set up, about the way they seem to do things that doesn’t seem amazing? 3. The pastor knows my former mentors The Wilkinsons, his son was in Josh’s wedding, and he knows Dr. Kenyon. So well, in fact, that he dated DK’s sister for a while. How amazing is that? We’ve had some communication, enough for me to learn those things and for him to say that we’ll talk some more later about possibilities. The down sides? It’s a new program, I’d be building programs from the ground up. But God bless Suz and her transparency in the way she ran things, I honestly think I’ve seen how things go enough to have cut my teeth on that. I’m inexperienced, but there’s nothing that’s going to make me work harder than a killer challenge. Also, the main focus would be college, and I’d say I’m pretty in tune with those folks at the moment. This one is definitely on my frontal lobe. You know, where I keep things.

Redeemer PCA, Evans, GA: Got an e-mail from them the other day saying they’d received my resume and they would get back to me by the middle of the week. It’s not a lot of news, but it’s not bad news.

And that’s it. A couple other churches said they would review my resume and get back to me, but that was weeks ago, so I don’t hold out hope for them anymore. So I’m left with five. Out of 28. For those of you not doing the math at home, those aren’t great percentages. And this isn’t even 5 “really interested” ones. I’ve got 1 mildly interested, one “if this other dude doesn’t work out,” one I’d kill for but have no real grasp on how they feel about me, and 2 “we got your junk, you might hear from us later, thanks for letting us practice our ambiguous answers on you.” I think that’s enough wall of text for now. Tomorrow, I’ll probably relate to you the emotional ramifications of this whole crazy ordeal.

***WARNING*** Tomorrow’s post may be slightly emo, but a sort of spiritual emo. I guess you’ll see if you’re brave.

An Introduction

So, I set this thing up ages ago for a class, and I figured “Hey, I have an open blog sitting around, why not use it?” So this is going to be it. I’m going to try and chronicle for you, the best I can, my journey in attempting to become a youth leader. I’m sure I’ll stray off topic from time to time, wax theological, insert a song lyric or thoughtful quote here and there, but hopefully I’ll manage to make it all relate back somehow. Hopefully, a blog with a solid goal will keep me from going on about my soccer obsession or hours spent playing video games, which I’m sure will find their own independent area for me to express them. I just want this walk recorded, written down, and for me to have somewhere to talk about something that’s becoming a gigantic part of my life. I’m sure I’ll have more for you tomorrow, but right now, that’s all I have. Night.