Well it is Official. . .

As of Sunday night the most difficult decision I have ever had to make was made official. I am now in the proses of leaving my Church home of 22 years. I can't believe how hard this has been for me. I had to get in front of the Youth Group and announce it and explain why and boy was it hard. Now usually talking in front of people is no problem with me I love it but this was so close to my heart that I could not barely handle it. I shared a passage with them from the book of Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 29:11-12 (New International Version)

11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

We talked about how God has a plan for us and that this is part of the plan and that is not to harm any of us but to make us stronger and more prospers, I am not sure if that comforted them very much but I hope that it did. Here is the letter that I typed up about the reasons for my leaving.

Dear John Wesley,

This is the hardest letter I have ever written. I have spent many days and nights in prayerful thought to seek where God wants me to be in my life. Some of you may know that over the past several months I have been struggling in school, finances, and with personal issues. I have been hurting spiritually and emotionally. I have found myself being stretched beyond my limits and unable to perform any of my commitments, especially the commitments that I have made for the church, in way that is both excellent and that glorifies God. I have been forced to make a decision to honor God in way that will be best for myself, for John Wesley, and the Youth Program there.

John Wesley has been my church home for my entire life and many of my fondest memories and experiences have come from this church. You have done nothing but show Christ’s love to me in the way he has commanded us to. Out of respect to you and to God I have decided to resign from my position as Middle School Youth Pastor. My resignation is effective March 30^th.

This decision should in no way represent how I feel about the body of Christ at John Wesley. I believe that God is moving me on to the next phase of my life, which I guess would be called adult hood. The responsibilities I have both academically and financially will not allow me to continue here in the manner that I currently do.

I cannot express enough that this has nothing to do with the Youth at John Wesley. I could not be more proud of who they are and who they are becoming in Christ. They are the reason this has been the hardest decision I have ever made, which has caused me to loose sleep on several nights and to stress and worry about this for many months. I have obtained a new job that is full time, which will limit my ability to serve here at John Wesley. However it will be able to help me with the personal and financial struggles I have been having.

I want to encourage this body of Christ to continue on in the love which you have blessed me with. To my students, I pray that you continue to seek God daily, striving to find his purpose in your lives. To the adults, I pray that you will continue to sheppard the students here, and grow in this body of believers. I ask that you also pray for me as I move into this next phase of life, as I will continue to pray for you. I send you all my love and regards.

Love,

Michael M. Berry

I would like to encourage people to get in to contact with me if they have any questions about this or if they need to say something to me even they think it might be mean I want you to get it off your chest towards me because it will be healthy for you to do so.

Deep Thoughts

This is going to be a short one today guys just a real quick throw back to a time that many of you might not remember and, that is a time when Saturday Night Live was good. Back when they had things such as Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy. Tonight I was hanging out with some guys from the JW youth group and we were looking them up on you tube and Google and we found a web site that had a ton of them and that also had some code for a way to have them scroll some on my blog, so we copied it over and are going to see how it goes. By the way we could not find my favorite one that SNL did one time and it has to do with a kid getting splashed by a car if any one can find it let me know.

The Greatest Commandment

The Greatest Commandment

34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'^[a] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'^[b] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

I am betting that most of you that read this blog have herd this before but, I have just finished reading well listening to since I have the audio book and pretty much dislike reading a lot. Anyway I am not sure what I thought about this book over all but one part stood out to me and really challenged me and I thought that I would share that with you. That is wear The Greatest Commandment came into the picture the gentleman who wrote the book took an interesting look at it. He felt that he could not obey the second part of the commandment because he did not love him self. If he would treat people or talk to people the way that he talks to him self then he would be most likely have no one who would ever talk to him or be around him. This led him to figure out that he loved his neighbor better than him self a lot better. This really challenged me because I feel as if I can relate to this in a lot of ways.

Let’s just assume for the purpose of this post that I have no problem loving God with all my heart and with all mind and with all my soul which I do struggle with quite a bit but lets just say I have that down. I do not love my self very well at all especially right now I have not been loving my self for along time now. I put my self down all the time and I more often then not do not feel as if I should love my self or that others should waste love on me. I all ways feel that it would be selfish for me to have people waste effort and love on me when there are plenty of others who either deserver it more or need it more than I do.

Now it is important to understand that the problem I have is not with a lack of confidence I have but in an in ability to receive or accept love. I know that I am capable of many things and I know my strong points and the points that I need to work on. Now if I can not seem to receive love from others how one could assume that part of the problem I was talking about in my last post could be caused by this one. It can also be assumed that since I can not receive love from my self or others have I really received God's love into my heart or has my relationship with him been purely a mental thing and not a thing of the heart. From this one could make the jump that if I have not received God's love in my heart (even though I believe with out a doubt that God sent his only son Jesus down to earth to die for my sins) how is that I can share God's love with others. I am not sure but I see God working through me almost everyday in the lives of people around me.

I also can't help but think especially since I for some reason decided to write this on Valentines Day that my inability to love my self or receive love could be why I have not dated any one for real in my life time. I did however "Go out with" a girl in the 8th grade but that was not truly a dating relationship. Could it be that I do not allow my self to get to a place wear I can have feeling for some one and or receive feelings from some one else. Again sorry for the randomness and my inability to write well for you but these truly are the thoughts of a sinful man as they come spewing out of my head.

Love?

So I sometimes wonder how can I love God and know that God loves me when I don't think I have a clue what it is to love another person. I don't really think that I have ever loved some one I am meaning truly love them. I care deeply for my friends and family I want only the best for them and if there is pain or suffering in there lives I would do anything in my power to take it way, but is that love? I have know Idea I want to love I long for nothing more than I long to be in love with some one and spend the rest of my life with them. It worries me that at the age of 23 I have no idea how to love or care about some one in that way and that I don't think that I ever had even an inkling of what it is to feel that way or even how to work at it. I really feel that hinders my ability to do ministry sometimes how can I love Oak Hills and the kids if I am not sure what it is to love, don't get me wrong I know that Christ died for me, and that because of this I get to go to heaven. I feel that this is the most important information to share with high school kids but I always feel that it is a logical decision that I have made because it just makes some much sense to me but not a very emotional decision of love. I hate that because I don't know much about love or how it feels that when my friends and family are going through things with people they love or loved that I can not help them or give them advice and trust me on this some of them have been really going through some stuff that I just can't help them with. I also feel that now that I have waited so long to get in the game of love that I am so far behind that I won't be able to catch up with the knowledge everyone else seems to have. I would like to apologies for the incoherent rant that you just read another thing that I struggle with is getting my thoughts out of my head and to sound good in words. I just can't do it.