I lead a small group of 8 6th and 7th grade guys, appropriate called "The Pyros" along with Zach, whose been one of my kids since the 6th grade. Last night, we had our last meeting before the summer. I was thinking back on the overall ministry year, and had some great things occur. One of the highlights was last night. I connected with Roy, Evan, Justin, Phil, Zach, Greg, Alex and Max this year. Roy, Evan and Phil especially are hard kids. Not hard in the sense of difficult - well, they are in that sense, but I'm talking about being hard-hearted. They're high-risk kids whose hearts are cynical and tough. They've been a real challange. At the beginning of the year, they could've really cared less about anything I tried to teach them and now they listen because they know I care about them. Looking back on this year, I'm not sure that I personally taught them much. They came to Radical E (our praise and worship service with a gay name) because of our small group. We hung out, toilet-papered houses, got into a car-accident together, ate ice-cream, burned stuff, and talked about ways to make potato cannons. But I connected with them! It's been a real paradigm shift for me going from someone who was a mile wide and an inch deep, having to focus more on activities and administration than kids lives. I really like where I'm at now. I haven't got i all figured out, and it's a real struggle for me not to grow this group to unmanagable sizes, but for now, lives are being changed.