We have a year-long ministry immersion program at NCC called the Protege Program. People volunteer a year of their time to work on staff at NCC. Our third class of Proteges just started a couple of weeks ago, and we wanted to give a warm welcome to those who are making such a sacrifice to be serve with us. To that end, we put together a welcome video to introduce them to the church and the staff.

A note to any potential viewers from TED: This video is intentionally full of inside jokes and is not my most polished nor well prepared presentation.  However, it does show my ability to deliver an engaging monologue, even with little preparation.  I had been given some basic ideas and cues but otherwise ad-libbed this.

I guess I should begin at the beginning.

On Sunday I finished up my time as a Protege at National Community Church. It was a year of ups and downs for me personally, but I learned a ton. If you’re looking for some good ministry experience, good people, and a good city, you should check it out and I’d be happy to talk with you more about it. I especially recommend Team D (a.k.a. the Discipleship Department, a.k.a. people who work on small groups).

On Monday I launched a new website, but more on that later.

On Monday night Rachel and I walked by a house that she had seen for sale online. The man selling it happened to be sitting on his front steps, so we asked him if we could take a look around. It was a great deal, and we decided to see if we could buy it, so I spent the next two and a half days applying for loans, running numbers, etc.

On Wednesday night I won $40 playing poker.

On Thursday morning I was working on getting pre-approval letters. Around 11:40 I checked the house listing again, and they had received multiple offers and weren’t accepting any more.

Whew…

I’m frazzled. I think I’m busier this week than I was when I was working at NCC. Ah well, back to work on the website.

Found out about a huge blessing yesterday, NCC is providing some of the funds for our trip because of my work as a Protege. Very exciting news!

I’ve mentioned before that I think the reason my entrance into ministry was delayed after college was that God had some things to teach me, especially in the area of humility. I didn’t realize quite how true that was until last week.

On our first day at NCC, the staff and proteges were sitting around talking about the program, and Pastor Joel said something. I honestly don’t even remember exactly what it was, but it hit me. Right after college I was looking into a program very similar to the Protege program. I was talking with the pastor I would be working with, and I just really didn’t want one of those “work here part time and get a job part time as part of your ministry/support” positions.

While I do have a lot to learn practically about how to do ministry, I don’t really think that is why God sidetracked me. Plenty of people start with the same experience I had. No, He had (and perhaps still has) a lot for me to learn spiritually.

Today I start my new job as a Protege (intern) at NCC. Definitely looking forward to it. Got a chance to meet a couple of my fellow Proteges over the last few days, they seem like cool people. Gotta run now, don’t want to be late on my first day at work, more details later.