A myth about leadership is that you need to be in a position of leadership to influence others. The thought is that I can’t possible change anyone’s life, I’m just a ______ . We end up limiting ourselves based on where we are in life.

One man who influenced me the most was an offensive line coach I had named Gene Harpe. Before I met him I was an overwhelmed, unconfident, freshmen offensive lineman. One day, after an especially horrible practice, he wrote me a letter saying he believed in me and thought I had the potential to play like a junior that season. Some of the smallest things can have the hugest impact. I consider myself to be a confident person now because he believed in me and later on I understood how God believes in me.

The truth is that we have been uniquely placed where we are. Sometimes it’s not the head coach or the pastor but the position coach or small group leader that can help facilitate life change. My question is what are you doing with your influence?

This Sunday we will be continuing in our series Pocket Full of Sunshine. I’m so fired up about this series. We are going to be asking what is our “pocket full of sunshine.” If you google the origin’s of the phrase you will find  it has several meanings. Some say it means you have drugs in your pocket. Others say that the song is about hope. These next few weeks we will be figuring out what God wants “in our pockets” and what He wants to take out. Hope you will join us. Sunday Night Surge is every Sunday Night from 5p.m.-7p.m. at Statesboro First United Methodist.

Just finished reading Doug Fields book Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry. It is a great book about managing expectations, learning time management, and learning how to be a professional youth worker. I think the overall theme is to take care of our self spiritually. I’m a 2-month-old youth pastor quickly learning how little I know and how good God is. More and more I am realizing that so much of my effectiveness and happiness depends on my relationship with God. Big shout out to Doug Fields for helping youth workers in their ministry.