on service next year

Talking with dad is just an amazing thing. It's like he doesn't really give any advices but the careless, assumption loaded things he says and they kind of reaction it draws from me tells me a lot about myself.

We were talking about service next year, and work in the holidays. He thinks that youths are so free that if they have any financial woes, it's because they're not getting a job and working for the cash.

So that was the first break point. I pointed out that I'd gladly work if he finds someone to cover my duties in church. After all, I'm nothing like those youths who are so free.

Then he actually had the cheek to tell me to not blow my commitments off proportion. To which I steadily disagreed and challenged him to think if he ever, in any point in his life took on as many responsibilities as I did.

And then he said oh well, it's only natural since the youths are going to inherit the church, they're the future leaders and the should rise now, he says.

I snapped. I reminded him that the adults should attempt to fix their mess before passing it down to us. I reminded him that the aged who are retiring are exaggerating the take-over: they are looking too far down the generation, there are good 30-40 year olds sandwiched between what they perceive as generations.

Inescapable, I also voiced my heart felt sentiment about teaching in adult Sunday school. Of how I should not have taken the bait of "oh you have the gift of teaching" because heck, I'm already using it in youth and the adults should have felt the pain of an empty slot, a message that says "you've been resting on your laurels far too long".

I must say that, sadly, at the end of the year, I'm neither fully happy to head the youth ministry nor be a Sunday school teacher.
But I can't escape it either, I can't escape the fact that a layman life is not for me.
There are those who on a natural day, unprovoked, think of the church and the needs of people.

I'm the inert sort who doesn't know anything until he is thrust into a position where he must see it or die.
I'm that sort of useless guy.