Good-Bye Quest Youth

As I sit down to write this I have roughly 5 hours left as your youth pastor. By the time I post it, be that tonight or tomorrow that time will have come to a conclusion. I have wrestled with what I wanted to do and say for the past three months. It is not easy to say goodbye and I have been saying goodbye a lot lately.

Tonight I will/I did offer you the last devotion that I will have a chance to. I want to reiterate some of that here.

After The Debate: Simple Vs Simplistic

On Thursday night I got to watch a debate that I had been looking forward to for a number of months, Religion Soup hosted at Saint Mary's University by the Navigators. This was the first of what is shaping up to be an annual event. What a first debate it was, we listened to the arguments for and against the historical reliability of the gospels. Bart Ehrman argued that they were not reliable; Craig A. Evans argued that they were.

Before Ehrman began his opening statement he asked two questions. First he asked how many Christians were in the audience, to which a large percentage of hands went up. Then second he asked how many people wanted to see him get thumped, to which a similarly large percentage of hands went up.

I suspect that a similarly large percentage of people went home disappointed. In my opinion Ehrman won the debate.

Legacy

In what feels like a previous life I once held the position of 'Advertising Manager' at MSVU Students Union. It was a new position when I filled it, and I sincerely hope that whoever replaced me did better than I did. Never the less there are two things that stand out in my memory about that position. One was when I was asked to tell the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association that the Union was uncomfortable with their overt Christianity and we would only run their ads if they toned it down some (I am sure we will talk about that someday). And second were the giant metal monoliths that became our newspaper holders.

Why I have Been MIA And What I Have Been Doing

I have been off the grid now for about a month and a half. I didn't intend to do that. In fact I had intended to do something quite different. I had planned on blogging about my positive experiences at West End as my tenure as associate pastor comes to an end in a scant 28 days (Or in 4 youth groups, 3 young adult bible studies, 5 staff meetings, 4 Sunday services, 3 sermons and 1 youth leaders meeting).