Here's to a new summer

This past week was one that I had been anticipating and working towards since last August: training our YouthWorks summer staff and finally sending them out into their communities. It was with great joy and excitement that I met each one of my sixteen staff, knowing that they are on the brink of something great: a ten-week encounter with God unlike anything they've ever experienced before. What a humbling privilege it is to be called to teach and lead this diverse group of individuals, in whom I see pieces of the magnificent collage that is the image of God.

As we went through our training week, sent our staff on their way yesterday, and as I've tried to get back into summer Area Director mode over the past 24 hours, I have been nagged by a constant desire to check myself against last summer. How were my staff feeling last summer at this time? Have I connected with this new staff as well as I did with the previous one? Did I tell these staff all of the same things I told last year's? What was I thinking and feeling and doing last year at this time? I had a phenomenal (sorry for the YW buzzword) experience last summer, so if I am using that as a standard, I've raised the bar pretty high. But I find myself frustrated by these questions and comparisons, not only because I find myself lacking answers, but also because I start to wonder if I am comparing snickerdoodles to brownies.

This is a new summer. Of the sixteen people in my area, fifteen are almost completely new to me and one is an alumni of last summer's area who has grown and experienced much since last year. I have two communities in my area unlike any I've served with YouthWorks in the past. And I myself have changed in the nine months since I said goodbye to the summer of 2005. How could I possibly try to fit this summer into the nebulous - yet precious - mold of last summer?

I cannot. I should not.

... Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved. - Jesus Christ, Matthew 9:17

It strikes me that the preservation of the wine is as important as the preservation of the wineskins. Not only does Jesus offer this admonition to protect the new, but also to preserve the old. The old is not damaged until you try to put the new into it.

Lord, grant me creativity and wisdom so that I may lay aside last summer's wineskins and welcome in the fresh new wine of these four new staff teams. Allow me to celebrate - but not dwell on - the lingering sweet taste of last summer's wine. At the same time, help me to savor the complex taste of this 2006 vintage. May all of this work together to help me see and glorify your goodness.