June

At my church, we used to have fairly regular activities for the College and Career group. ("College and Career" is a common label that churches use for their younger adults.) Eventually, maybe people got too busy and nobody really wanted to plan anything. There were some of us that played squash, but there were a lot that didn't.

In May the place where we played squash shut down for renovations, so for a few Wednesdays nothing was planned. But someone had brought up the idea that we could play Ultimate (a.k.a. Ultimate Frisbee) sometime. Around the end of May, I got some of them together for a game of Ultimate, and I enjoyed it a lot. Quite tiring though. I thought it would be nice to do it again, and I guess some others thought so too because they decided to do this every week for the summer. We've also been going for ice cream afterwards.

I think this was what I needed. I have friends at church who are close to my age and older who I haven't spent much time with in the last while, except at church services and maybe lunch after church. And then there are the friends younger than me. They hadn't really had the chance to be involved in the group back when it was going, because they were too young. I work with them in running the youth group, and as much as I usually enjoy my time with the youth, it's nice to finally hang out with these friends without having responsibilities going on at the same time. Maybe it helps having a bit less going on with the youth group this month (no fundraisers in the last few weeks!). The exercise is good too.

It's been a refreshing month, and maybe it's been refreshing for some others too because they keep coming. Maybe in certain ways, pursuing some self-interest in church can actually do some good. After all, there's a good chance that if I need something (for example, refreshment and times with friends), others need it too. Of course, selfishness in a church can be a very damaging too. So how do you decide when your own desires are a good thing?