Kicked in the Shinn

If you don't know him, the man on the left is Jason Shinn. I've known Jason for around 6 six years. I met him through the group of youth pastors at Velocity and got to know him even better when he interned at Crossroads while finishing up his degree in youth pastoring. His wife Jess (who also does an amazing job leading our youth ministry) had the joyful experience of living in my basement for a year prior to her marriage to J. When J came to crossroads, he had no idea what he was in for. It was not an easy thing to turn the youth group over to him, but Jay has led it in a great way, discipling and building deep relationships with the kids.

Not too long after he came on full-time at Crossroads he was thrown into the lucky position of having the entire senior staff at the church leave due to infidelity, leaving Jason to help teach and lead throughout some of the debacle. It's been very cool watching him grow over the past years to become the teacher and youth pastor that he is today. I've watched Jason learn to deal with stress and challenges over the years, but this year at camp was awesome to see him in action. If you know J, you know that he wears his heart on his sleeve and and it's not too tough to tell when things are weighing him down.

You see, July 1 marks a tough time for Jay in that he was cut back to part-time in his job due to budget constraints and has to figure out how to feed his family. With all this going on, you'd think he'd be stuck on this fact and not really be there at camp or with the kids. This year at camp, though, Jason was at his best. I got the chance to see him at camp full of life, fully engaged and leading the best I've seen him lead. He had things organized and nailed down like I've never seen, he was full of energy and a blast to hang with. In one particular youth group meeting time at camp that he had with the high school and college students, he cast a vision out there for them on what his expectations are for his leaders and why he thinks they can meet the challenge. I sat in the back of the room smiling as I watched the kids respond to what J had to say. The thing that sucks is that Jason may have to take another job and go lead another group of kids. I'm OK with this on one hand, but on the other hand it sucks. I (and the rest of the families at Crossroads) would hate to lose him, but he needs to take care of his family. It'll be interesting to see what God does in the midst of this whole thing. I just find it ironic that Jay really hits his stride just when he may have to leave.