The church needs men who are willing to MENTOR like this, and boys who are brave enough to allow themselves to be molded in such a way...
The Church needs a prayer like the prayer of the Citadel......
"Give me a boy, Oh God,who is willing to learn the true value of honor,the necessity of perseverance and loyalty,and the meaningfulness of devotion to God and country. And I shall take this boy as does a blacksmith take a crude piece of metal, and place him over a forge whose liberating flame of education is fired by the bellows of strict military discipline.

Into this ingot of a man I shall temper self-respect and self-discipline, fear of God and respect for mankind, appreciation of freedom and  awareness of what sacrifices must be made to preserve freedom, and above all an insatiable desire for truth and honesty.

And when all these things I have done, I shall brand my finished work with a ring of gold to let all of humanity know that I have given back to the world a Citadel Man".

I love biographies (thank you fios for the BIO channel). I can watch anything about anyone's life, and never get bored. Even movies based on actual events. Ever watch the movie, where the guy, or girl do the impossible. Where they were broke, but somehow found enough money ( I always wonder how?) to fly to wherever, meet whoever, fast forward to whenever, and they have magically accomplished whatever. Love it! For hours my mind wanders to the "in between scenes". The scenes that weren't dumped on the editing floor of a hollywood cemetary. The scenes where he/she was at their last dime, or at their ropes end. THAT'S where my mind goes. 

And why? 

Because people always have and always will matter to me. The human condition(s) are fascinating to me. I wrote in my journal (Man, over 10 years ago now) a prayer. The prayer simply went like this
"Dear God, 
I may not always matter to your people, but your people will always matter to me". 
Jimmy.
The very force that should drive a pastor, a child of God, heck a human, should be this very thing. People! 
We can get so crazy of how well we can "lead" people, to "reach" people. Yet, we can really easily lose the point.
Its really not about how well you can lead people, but how well you care for people. If you can't communicate how much you care ABOUT people, you have no right to LEAD people. My biggest failures in ministry are not the programs, events, systems or creative things that flopped hard (I'm a try anything guy. We are bound to fail, bounce back, win, move on, fail, bounce back. Repeat ). But my biggest failures are the people who I failed to love, care for, and support to the best of my ability. 
Its really a simple process. 
1. Care alot
2. Don't stop
3. Care enough to disturb, anger, and PROVOKE people to be all God wants them to be. (dying techniques here).
4. Make sure your around people who care about YOU, so you can withdraw and deposit care. Number one way to STOP caring, is be at a point in life when you feel no one cares about you. They're out there. I promise.

We so quickly forget that we live in a world where the people (rich, poor, needy, angry, sarcastic, negative, improper, materialistic, ignorant, mean, shady, lying, sinful) people matter to God, and they should always matter to us. 
John 13:34-35

Jimmy

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