The Deacons had approved it.  It was shared in Church Conference.  What did they mean I needed to pick my battles and not let this be one of them?  It had to be one of them.  Otherwise, my word with those teenagers was going to be shot.  We’d spent over a year earning each other’s trust.  I had listened to each of them, at some point, discuss trust issues with key adults in their lives.  I wasn’t about to be one of them.  I loved them way too much for that. 

After many sleepless nights of arguing with the Lord on how this should all go down, I’d made my decision.  It was the only option that would leave them together and they needed each other.  It was all that most of them had.

So, I sat down and wrote the most ambiguous letter I think I had ever written.  Yet, it was still incredibly painful to write.  I sealed it up and put two copies in my church bag.  Then, I went and watched my all-star teenagers give their friends at a local home for moms and children the best Happy Birthday, Jesus party ever.  Again, I was incredibly proud of them.  Each month, they got more and more creative with how to teach and love on these kids.  Adult members of our church had even called off their own Bible Study in order to be available to go help serve with our group.  It was a milestone kind of night.  The kind where, if you had doubts at all about your group, they disappeared.  It was not the kind of night that you resigned from leading them.

I did though. 

I walked into the Preacher’s Office, when the night was over, with the Chairman of Deacons and listened as the concerns and phone calls/visits from various folks had been shared with them.  And then, when I think they expected me to say “I’m sorry” and “We can do it their way”, I handed them each their copies of the letter that said: I’m done.  I couldn’t in good conscience allow parents who barely darkened the doors for anything, let alone Bible Study be the ones to dictate how I would lead this group.

And then I told them that I would be telling the youth the following weekend on our Winter Retreat.  For them to hear it from the mouth of anyone that didn’t belong to me would have been wrong at this point in our journey together.  I asked them if they would tell the church while we were gone and then I walked out.  I got into my car, turned up “God of this City” and cried tears of relief the whole way home; knowing that greater things really were yet to come. 

And my mind began to shift gears towards the Winter Retreat and how on earth I would tell those teenagers that I was leaving them.  Leaving them without answers for where I was going or who was going to be leading them next.  And I silently asked God come in big on His promise that all things work out for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose.