Decisions Made... good and bad.

My friend Theophilus, suggested that I elaborate on some of the decisions that were made after a recent college trip to Florida. I stated that there were some good decisions made and some bad decisions made. Some by me, some by others. I wish I could write and say I made all the best decisions that I could have made but I didn't.

We have made this trip for 3 years in a row now and each trip I have learned something new. This year was the first year that we had a parent attend the trip with us. I was happy to have her attend... at first. One of the bad decisions I made was to not lay out ALL of the rules that we expected on this trip. I assumed (yeah, don't tell me, I know what that means) that the parent knew our goals of the trip and was there to support myself and the senior pastor as the leaders of the trip. What ended up happening though was that she trumped our leadership because she was "MOM" of 2 of the kids on the trip and it ended up affecting another teen who went down with us.

Here is how the story goes. Every year when we go down we get there Wednesday, attend church on campus, and the students spend the next 2 days/3 nights living the life of a college student. They go to classes, attend chapel, follow the same rules that the students follow that attend. They don't have distractions of going of campus and to the beach etc. because we want them to focus on the messages in chapel and to be somewhat isolated so God can work in His small still voice. The parent that went down and her children, just recently joined the church. They moved here from Cleveland a few years back and attended a big church that is like-minded there. So they know a lot of people from that church. They saw some people who attend the college there that they knew from that church and her kids decided that they wanted to go to the beach. The mom said ok, and no one cleared anything with the SP or me. You may wonder why this is a problem. The problem comes in a few ways. And I am not a control freak that the mom had control of her kids and I didn't, at least not too much of a control freak. But there are a couple facts that caused the whole group problems. The first is that they skipped out of chapel to go to the beach. This was a problem because one of the students of the college (their friend) drove them, and could be booted from the college for doing this. The second problem is that another of the kids from our church went with them. I can only imagine the scenario of him going off campus and not telling us, him drowning in a riptide or something and me having to call his mom and tell her I didn't know where her son was. Thirdly, it added a sense of rebellion to the group. Let's face it, when you come from cold/snowy ohio and hit the Florida sunshine, many would choose the beach over chapel, but that doesn't make it right. Because of that sense of rebellion there were hard feelings from some in the group who did the right thing and those who did the wrong thing.

So my bad decsions were NOT going over in detail with the parent what we expect to accomplish, and just assuming she knew. The other bad decision was (after driving for about 16 hours and being tired/cranky) when I felt that the parent was challenging me on something (something stupid, the discussion was about how much interaction the college kids had with the outside world/media influence and how many would even know who William Hung was, she said "EVERYONE would they aren't as sheltered as you think") I made the remark (fast lips/slow brain) that not everyone sneaks off campus to go the beach... OUCH, not smart. She didn't say much after that, and I did apologize for it later. We chalked it up to both of us being super tired. In truth she was challenging me and in truth I was insulting her. But I should know better. So two stupid decision on my part. Lot's on some students part and a few on a parents part. I live, I learn, next year I will lay it out better for the parents that attend.

As far as good decisions. We had 4 senior who went down who plan on attending this fall. We also had many personal decisions in the chapel services that people made. We went to the church where one of our students who attends the college is the intern Youth Pastor on the last night. He put together a youth rally while we were there so we could attend. It was well done and we got to hear a great song that some of the African students at the college shared with us. This was special because it is the first time I have ever seen my GUYS fired up about a song for Jesus, as a Group I mean. They literally sung the song for 40 minutes on the way home and then they sung it on Sunday Night for the church congregation. It was a trip that I am glad we made... but I always need about a year to recuperate and forget how much I hate the drive down and back.

I guess that is the greatness of God, that he can work through the good and bad decisions to see his will accomplished.