All Stories Come To An End

The Master looked at him with compassion and said, 

"This season is ending, but you've learned 

how to be a worker."

The Master told the worker to look out.

"What do you see?"

This excerpt is from my end of the apprenticeship sermon. In this story I wrote, the Master spent a season teaching a worker how to work in the fields of the Kingdom. I chose to write this story to retell my experience as an apprentice. 

This entire blog has been doing that as well. It has been outlining a story from the beginning. This story was my apprenticeship. This story was woven into the larger story of the Kingdom. This story, has come to it's conclusion. 

I am transitioning off staff. As of June 1, 2020, I began a new job as a Family & Community Coordinator in Dallas, TX working in Pleasant Grove. God keeps giving me this full circle type of life. I did not want to be at Richland as a student, and I ended up coming back to serve. I did not think I would work in Pleasant Grove, but here I am. God is weaving this story and although my story as an apprentice is ending, my life as a follower of Christ and a servant of His purposes continues. 

I want to thank everyone who prayed for our students and prayed for our Richland Staff Team. I am so thankful for everyone that supported me emotionally and financially. This blog is a testament of the work you all did as my ministry partners.

So, to finish this story, I will give a recap of May.

Ending the Year

We ended our year with a virtual End of the Year Party! We encouraged our students to dress up and log onto Zoom. Sirak led us in a small reflection and we had our annual Thunderduckie Awards! Dayo and KB helped me create our recap video! Our students had a really good time. We had a ton of students show up! We were so encouraged by how God had allowed new students to show up during this Zoom season that we had to celebrate them too!

Some of our students went all out and some of our students came as a gray box!

Dallas Staff Team

I am going to miss this group of people! The Dallas Staff Team has been so supportive and loving. Sirak and Sandra have been really good friends to me and they have been amazing coworkers. They have taught me to do ministry and have challenged me to grow. Laurence and Amber welcomed me into the team and listened to me and asked for my input. This was such a great team to work on and I will miss working with them!

The staff not social distancing

Final Leader Meeting

We also spent some time celebrating our leaders, and the special guests we had been inviting to our leader meetings. We encouraged each other and the staff delivered small gifts that week to their houses! We were able to give them a small poster with notes and pictures of this year. I loved working with this leader team. They were so bold and loving. They were quick to call me out and they were teachable as well. 

Final Core

So, I did not take a screenshot of our final core. I thought I did. I was just swept up with the experience I totally forgot. Anyway, we also did an encouragement core. We talked about how we had seen God move and we thanked people for their love and care. It was a really sweet time. 

Leading with Dayo was an adventure this year. We had our ups and downs, but through it all we became good friends. Dayo is thoughtful and he is in tune with his emotions. I am so thankful I was able to lead with him this year. 

Dayo and Josh not social distancing. 

Final Classes

We had a class based around the book Elmer Gantry and it was mostly based on heresy, hypocrisy, and using our words to craft an image. This class leaned heavily on images and we struggled as a group to write out images that our instructor thought were close to the right idea. We made it out and I was able to write a poem and write a short song on the topic. This month felt like an intense writing class. This leads me to talk about....

Apprentice Sermons

To end our apprenticeship, we were asked to write a sermon outlining our biggest takeaways this year. It was such a blessing to hear how God worked in the lives of my coworkers. It was very emotional, but also the apprentices asked really good questions that had us thinking and reflecting. I started out my sermon with a story. Part of the story was listed at the very top of this blog post. This year was a year of God deepening lessons He began teaching a while ago. This year, God showed me that He was giving me tools to help me minister to students. He showed me He had led people to challenge me to look more like Him and to look for Him. God was saying a ton of things to me. I just had to learn to listen and trust. God also reminded me what it means to be a servant. A servant does whatever is needed to honor someone else and to look for their needs. God showed me what this means practically this year. 

Right now, our country is hurting. The oppressed are crying out and are seeking justice in the face of injustice. We are called to serve. We need to step into these situations and learn to serve. God is preparing His people to speak life, light, and order into the chaos. I encourage you to speak life. 

I encourage you to actually listen to the cries of our black brothers and sisters. 

We need to learn to listen and serve.

This world is so chaotic and it seems as though darkness is destroying everything. However, I choose to think that darkness is no longer hiding and the darkness is being brought into the light. Although things are so dark right now, I look beyond what I can see and trust that God will finish His redemptive work and destroy the chains of injustice and oppression once and for all. 

So, I leave you with a continuation of the story that I wrote. With this, I hope you continue to look beyond the darkness and continue to support campus ministry, support the oppressed, and choose to make disciples of Jesus wherever you are. 

"What do you see?"

The worker said,

"I see trees of every kind producing all types of

good fruit. 

I see green luscious fields and water flowing."

I see fresh produce. 

I see flowers of every kind,

together in harmony.

"Good. You see it, now you got to go do it," He said.

THE WORK IS NOT DONE.

Go do the work that God is setting before you.

Go.

With much love,

Josh