Another posting lull. Ugh. Like I've mentioned before, I feel that blogging is a way that I connect with God, because my writing is a way to slow down my thoughts and think about the things that I've been learning lately. I know that, so I know I need to be doing this, but I just haven't been doing it, again. I need to get better, and I will. But anyways, today I just want to give you guys a short recap of what happened this week.
Yesterday, I taught the lesson at TNT (the middle school Campus Life program I help out with) for the second time. I wrote about my first time a few months ago (you can read that here if you haven't already).That lesson, my material was okay, but my teaching presence wasn't very good. I basically just read from my notes. I didn't really look up or engage anyone listening, because I was scared. Like I said in that post I just talked about, I am not generally comfortable with public speaking. I'm a guy who likes to stay in the background. I don't like to talk in front of people.
But, they require it if you want to help out. And I did want to help out. And I also knew that God was going to use this to help me grow. And he definitely has! This second time was a lot better. I haven't seen the video of me teaching yet, but I felt a LOT more comfortable this time around. I didn't look around and engage people as much as I would have liked (and that's on me for not rehearsing out loud enough), but I DID do better. And like I said, it was much more comfortable. It's amazing to see God work!
And what I loved even more than my improvements was small group afterward. That's when I saw that God truly can use my efforts! During small group, we go through some review questions from the lesson, and we also dig a little deeper: how specifically can we apply these things? And the kids in my group were more focused than they ever had been in my time there (about 5 months). They knew the answers to the review questions, and they asked really good follow up questions afterward!
One bad thing about me is that I second guess myself about pretty much everything. So I was feeling pretty good about my teaching, but after I was done I was like "was it really even that good?" But during small group, God showed me that He can and will use what he shows me when I prepare the lesson! He showed me the kids pay attention. He showed me the kids are learning from what they hear, and they want to apply it! It's so cool to see. I never thought I'd be doing anything like this, but now I get to watch as God uses the Campus Life staff and I help these kids to learn more about God and how to be like Him!
I don't know if I'm explaining this very well, but it just really excites me. God is working in the lives of these students, and I get to be a part of it! I'm really grateful that God has shown me that I can help make a difference, and he can use me. I can't wait to see what he does next!