Got something I wanna run by you...

It was the end of my sophomore year of college. Sarah Masters and I had each been volunteering with Matt Rice in the middle school youth program at St. Joseph’s in Bryan for over a year. We’d just finished all our youth nights for the spring and were transitioning into the summer. Matt said he wanted to take us to lunch. I just assumed this was to talk about the past semester and the retreat we’d had a few weeks prior, either that or to plan for the fall.  Matt, Sarah and I went to downtown Bryan, to Mr. G’s, which is probably the most authentic Italian pizza you can find in the Brazos Valley. We sat out on the patio, and as we ate our lunch that afternoon Matt told us about an idea for youth ministry that he’d been dwelling on for about 10 years.
When he first started talking, I just thought this would be a little side thing, something to add onto our already existing program. But as he continued talking, I began to realize that this was much more than some small implementation. He was talking jobs and multiple churches and paid intern ministry positions, and then my favorite, a school of youth ministry somewhere way down the road. But even after he’d explained everything in detail, that there would be a ministry supervisor overseeing the intern-like ministry leaders at different parishes, that this model would make youth formation more cost effective for both the churches and for those running the ministries, it still didn’t hit me that this was not only possible, but something that was going to actually come to pass. At that point, it just seemed like an idea, but through the grace of God, this was a model that would soon take shape and get its start.
Over the summer, a small group of us who had been in ministry with Matt collaborated on a name for this new ministry model and wrote a mission statement for the company. During the upcoming year, Matt was going to check into starting a non-profit and figure out the necessary steps to make this dream come to pass. Honestly though, at this point, I really wasn’t sure if this was actually going to happen. And if it did happen, I wasn’t really sure what my place in the entire design was going to be. I just allowed myself to be a sounding board for ideas as much as possible. It was mentioned perhaps me being a board member someday, as someone who helped in the early stages of the company. I guess I just thought I’d have some training and then lend a hand when needed. I didn’t think I’d ever actually have a job in ministry, but that’s really not what the Lord had in mind.
Psalm 78:52 says: “God led forth his people like sheep; He guided them through the desert like a flock”. I know for me, the summer and fall after Matt took us out to lunch and told us of his plan for CCFM, it just felt like an intense period of waiting. I was waiting to see if any of this was going to actually work, and waiting to see what role I was going to play in this plan. Everything just seemed open and vast, a possibility, but not clear or concrete, not yet a reality. However, it was during this period of still and waiting that God was forming and preparing all of us on staff to step into the positions He had planned for us. Matt was learning about what it was going to take to bring CCFM into insistence. Kyle and Sarah were off at NET, practicing ministry and growing in skill and experience. I was continuing to grow myself, beginning to be depended on more and more in the ministry at St. Joseph’s and in the brainstorming and planning of CCFM. God had his hand on us all, and He was getting us ready to go out and spread His love and His word to those new youth and parishes we were soon to encounter.
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