There is an old saying that says,"times are a-changing." That is so true especially right now. We were taught to pray for God's will be done which requires more than the spoken word. It requires discernment, faith  and obedience. We need to "know" what God is doing and what He is saying. That in itself is no easy feat. With all the noise in our lives including our own voice its difficult to really hear God at times. Once we think we know then we have to belief Him. Admit it or not we don't always understand what He is saying or Why is He doing what He is doing. We sometimes think we are the final judge not God. Knowing what God has said and seeing what He is doing is not enough. We must be obedient and willing to serve at His pleasure not our own. Know, trust, do sounds easy but how often do we fail. There are times that we convince ourselves that we don't know for sure so we do nothing waiting for God to burn a bush for us. In my life God has burned whole forest down while I wait for a sign.
For several years now I have felt God moving us away from short term youth group mission trips. Not completely, maybe but certainly not to the degree we once did. Recently, God hit me with my own preaching. Bloom where you are planted! I have preached that with groups every summer for the past 14 years. How does that apply to us? We were called to make a difference in McDowell County, WV. We work in the community all year long until the summer hits. In the summer we spend all our time and strength on managing the work teams. They do good work and its much needed but it takes us away from the community for 3 months. Come September we start all over again in a community that feels we abandoned them. So change is here.
This summer we are partnering with ASP to host work teams at our facility in Welch. This gives us the best of both worlds. The work continues and our staff is freed up to continue the ministry in our community. We will still host some teams but it will about a fourth of what we did in the past. We believe this is what God is doing and we believe we are being obedient to what He has said.
Times are a-changing, praise God!