Today I practiced something very hard for me

It is called self control. We had a leadership team meeting. Gregg wanted peoples thoughts and opinions. Now I have to say I genuinely respect the fact that he was asking. Because how often does that really happen? It doesn't. But when I found out he wanted to talk about numerical growth I knew I should just keep my mouth shut. He kept making the statement we are seeing people saved we don't care about numbers and things like that. I agree if people are meeting Jesus that's great but if people aren't coming who's gonna hear the message. Numbers are important, to an extent. I've had the discussion with many people much older and more intelligent than me. They agree. Just my opinion though. So the whole topic of how people only hang out with their friends and whatever came up. Matt had the argument that it is okay to hang out with your close friends even in that setting as long as you aren't exclusive and you won't let anyone else in your group of friends. But in the same sense he was talking about when people go up to a group of people trying to be their 'friend' but they don't fit at all so you can tell they don't mean it they are just doing it because they know they should. But Zak argued with him about how we shouldn't hang out with our close friends and all that stuff about including everyone. I agree with Matt, especially on the second part about being able to tell when it's fake. It is very obvious in situations like those. For instance, Kelli and I found somewhere we belong. We fit in. We don't seem fake or awkward. Luke and Josh and even Lane. Several people talked about doing the question and answer nights. We did that with Jared back in the day. They were always good because they were anonymous so people can ask whatever they want if they don't feel comfortable just asking it. And it's nice to do something different instead of just the same routine every week. It does start to get old and boring after a while. Everyone seems to love their small group. Their was a suggestion about having small groups twice a month. That's how we did it with Jared. But I think we should do it coed. Or do one of the weeks coed and one of the weeks split up. That would solve that whole argument about coed or not. So back to the meeting. Zak of course had an opinion about the small groups. It was something weird that we shouldn't do. The end of that. From across the room Joe kept telling me I needed to share my thoughts and I told him no multiple times. I could not do that. If I would have done that in the mood I was in today, which was very pro-jared, it would have gone something like this... Numerical growth: There has been no growth since you took over Vertical. And as I once said to Kalah in a talk about my feelings towards the whole situation.

I honestly don't feel like we go to a bad youth group when I put it in perspective. If we went to a bad youth group people wouldn't keep coming and people wouldn't invite their friends. We go to an average youth group. Its like we are settling for okay. And the reason it feels so bad to all of us that were here back in the day is because back then we were in an above average youth group. Our worship every week looked like it does now at camp. So imagine what worship at camp looked like with that group. Talk about being 'on fire'. So now since we have gone from this far above average youth group to an average youth group we feel like we are in a terrible youth group. What hurts is to know that it hurts Jared. Vertical is like his little baby. He raised it. He raised us up to be these little hardcore no punk teenagers who were screaming their hearts out during worship and jumping and clapping and dancing so much that everyone was drenched in sweat and out of breath at the end of one song, but they didn't stop they kept going the whole time. Now we are a bunch of kids who stand there more worried about what's happening on the other side of the room than what's happening in our relationship with God. I am definitely guilty of that one. I am very distracted during worship these days. But the fact that Jared comes to Vertical and he can't even stay the whole time because it hurts him that bad. Because he sees the way boys are walking into our building treating girls and nobody is stopping them because we are used to it now. He sees that more than half the room does not put their phone away for even one song during worship. He sees that nobody is engaged like they used to be. Nobody is jumping and clapping and screaming and shouting about how great God is. He sees people sleeping while Gregg is talking because they just don't want to listen. And he is so hurt that he has to go find his wife and leave. Actually the word he used was disgusted. He told me he was disgusted by Vertical that day. That's hard. I don't like hurting Jared. He always taught us way back when we were still the GUTS team that we needed to be thermostats not thermometers. We aren't being very good thermostats. Considering you can't tell the difference between an adult leader, student leader, regular at vertical, and someone who has never been before. So after all that has happened today and all of my reflection on everything that is my conclusion. I am hurt that we are hurting Jared.