I don't talk about my faith much on this site. I frequently mention my time spent with the you or at church, but I rarely talk about my actual beliefs. With that said, just know that my opinions are mine alone. I'll discuss them with you if you would like, but I don't want to force my beliefs upon anyone else or preach to those who don't wished to listen. I also keep this off of this page because I do have some of the youth at my church that read this page. I don't want them to see what I try so hard to hid when I'm around them, but I'm well beyond my breaking point and am trying to figure out what to do.
In the last few months I have been experiencing a spiritual crisis. Several months ago we lost our youth ministers to politics in the church. It doesn't matter how or why any more. They just felt like they had to go. It was very upsetting for the youth of the church as well as for me. I felt like I lost two very close personal friends. In the months that have followed I have been privy to the very depths of the church. Perhaps privy is not the correct word, but I have seen the ugly underbelly and learned to hate it. I quit going to Sunday morning church because I would walk into the building and get angry.
I continued to go to youth on Sunday nights, teach bible study on Wednesday, and perform whatever tasks I could to help the rest of the church. One of the tasks included setting up the CrossJourney website for the youth group and serving on the communications committee for the church. In July, I got called by the communications committee to remove "questionable" material after they had given our youth minister permission to police his own site and decide what to put up there. I was left in the unenviable position of being placed right in the line of fire while the youth minister was out of town. The questionable material were pictures of some of the girls in bathing suits at a water park during summer mission trips. I complied with their wishes, but stepped out of the way and refused to be a part of that committee any longer.
One of the other tasks I got to work with was to be a part of the interview team that selected a new Youth Minister. When we interviewed Rick, he seemed to have a great deal of vision. We were all impressed with him and decided to extend him an offer after talking to several other candidates. Sometime later Rick hand picked his own assistant who had previously been one of his youth at a different church. Logan came aboard and he and Rick began making strategic changes and working to implement the ideas that Rick had already put into place at the last couple of churches he had worked at.
While they have been working on the changes, the counselors have been running the Sunday night activities for almost 6 months now. It's nothing new to plan the Sunday night activities, but I don't necessarily feel like everything is being supported. I've reached the point that I no longer feel like I'm a part of a team and now feel like I'm being used. Whenever Rick and I talk it's always business. He usually has some new task that he would like to see accomplished. I don't feel like it's fun anymore. I want to do something about it, but I don't know what to do. I don't want to leave because I don't want to leave the kids. I'll miss them and the bonds we have formed, but I don't know if I'm doing more harm than good at this point. All these emotions are boiling just under the surface and I have to bury them deep and hide them so that they can't see it.
I'm weary and I'm tired of looking to rest in Him that I'm supposed to be able to find.
Mercy Me - In You
Update: My mom's response
