Blog Reflection

The Capstone Project has been an amazingly terrifying experience. what I mean by that is though there was a lot of stress I feel like this project has given me a new perspective on what it takes to make it through tough situations. The project itself was very fun for me, I got to work on something I love in my physical, as well as write about something I feel so strongly about. The capstone project gave me a new sense of what it means to work in the professional world, you must take charge on your own if you want something to happen. I also learned that I am much more passionate about pursuing youth ministry as a career now that I've gotten an almost full experience.

Some of the experiences I learned from the capstone project were that though working under pressure and stress is not the ideal situation, I am able to focus and get what I need to get done out of the way not matter what the stress. Socially, I learned that I'm not the best at working with other people even if those people are there to help me do the best that I can. I have also learned that I am willing to improve any situation, like social awkwardness, to make myself and my project better. Other experiences I have gained is that my ability to be creative is definitely helpful for my physical project, because I had to find a way to make an interesting lesson for my mentor's youth group so they would be engaged.

Some challenges I faced through out the entire project were definitely trying to balance my time wisely. I had a lot of things going on like the musical, night school, and work before I started working with my mentor and starting to write my paper. Though at first it was a struggle, I learned that most of the time I can make a negative and stressful situation work out for the better, and I was able to get everything completed for the appropriate due dates. One of the major struggles I felt I had during the capstone process was receiving a "No Read" for my teacher draft, not only did that stress me out for trying to gain those points back some how, but It made me want to try twice as hard when I went to put the finishing touches on my final paper.

Over all I believe that this project has created a sense of what it is really like when we get to college, and move on to our careers. Though the capstone was one of the scariest projects I've ever done in my life, I have learned to appreciate what the project was made to do, which was prepare us. As I look back on when I started the project to now, I have realized that no matter how terrible, or stressful I felt about the entire thing, I know that I needed that. This project has made some pretty great changes to how I organize, manage my time, and handle stress, In my opinion, thats exactly what this project was made to do. 

Final stages of planning Hours 22-25

Today was my final hours with my mentor, though I still have a lesson to perform at the next youth group meeting, I have finally finished all my hours. Today we talked about how my lesson is coming a long, and Its coming along pretty well, though it is a lot harder to plan a lesson then I thought it was going to be. the topic I chose for my lesson, was connections, as in relationships with people, reaching out to those you know and don't know. I feel like I have finally come to the realization of what youth ministry is all about, and one of the most important thing I've learned is that we are based off of relationships. My mentor gave me some advice that I think really defines how I have felt about this project, that being that youth ministry is really a balance, whether its between activities and lessons at youth group or balancing in every day life like school, work, and extracurricular activities. None the less, I have a lesson to plan! wish me luck!

Planning out a lesson (hours 19-21)

So I met with my mentor yesterday and we started discussing how to make a lesson plan and what it really means to be apart of youth ministry. It was super interesting to me that you really have the freedom to do a lot of activities, it's not just revolved around the church but with in the community. Things as simple as supporting the youth members at their events, and learning to balance your lesson, activities, and anything else you do during the night.

So we started getting to the last of our hours, and now I'm getting to plan my own lesson. Still thinking of a topic to create my lesson around.. This should be interesting.

Camp time! Day 3 hours 16-18 (February 18, 2013)

As my camp experience comes to an end, we closed the camp with chapter six of the book of Daniel, which was all about life's oppositions. when you look at youth ministry as a whole, you realize that there are a lot of things that seem not as important after finding what you're truly looking for, which is Jesus. As we finished up this part of Daniel, I realized that you have to be the change you want to see in the world, things aren't just going to happen for you. After the lesson was over, I had some time to reflect and talk to my mentor about how  felt about the entire experience so far and I can honestly say it has been a struggle. I have seen changes in myself from when the project started to now, its only been a month and I've already learned so much!

Camp time! Night 2 hours 13-15 (February 17, 2013)

So tonight we talked about chapter three of the book of Daniel, the whole lesson that the speaker was making was that we have to fight the worlds trends. what I mean by that is that the world has so many thing that we as people are willing to go along with, but in the end we have to be our own person if we want to get anywhere not only in a religious point of view in our walk with Christ, but in general. This lesson tonight taught me a lot about what it means to be in youth ministry and the sacrifices that have to be made in order to become a better person, and youth pastor. One of the main things I've learned was that sometimes you have to give up something or someone in order to make your life better, whether thats going along with what everyone else is doing or sacrificing a night or two to help out someone in need. as a christian, I've learned that sometimes you have to fight for yourself in a world of people following the trends. 

Camp time! Day 2 hours 9-12 (February 17, 2013)

Day two was pretty awesome! As a camper I got to go around to a few different workshops about thinks like ministry in media, love and relationships, and also gospel in spoken word. After each workshop I got to talk to each of the leaders of the workshops about their experiences and what it was like starting their youth group and what has changed over time, almost all of them said that one of the biggest changes were how they really took the room as a speaker in their lesson, as well as how inspiring it was for them to see the change in their group as people come and go.

Today was definitely a day to remember, I can't wait to see what this profession has in store for me one day.

Camp time! Day 1, hours 4-8 (February 16, 2013)

Today was our first day of camp, I worked with a bunch of great youth pastors and a spoken word artist Hosanna Wong (she's amazing look her up). So for our first day we really focused on the book of Daniel, chapter 1. The youth pastor that was leading the camp lessons on the book of Daniel really connected it to real life situations, and he had such an amazing speaking presence I couldn't help but be drawn into everything he was saying. After his lesson was over we sat down and had a talk about what it's like to get to where he was as a speaker and a youth leader. Day one was amazing.