The Life Teen Staff Retreat

The Life Teen staff gathered this week at Covecrest for a retreat. Everyone from the Mesa office, the Atlanta office, and all our area contacts arrived to spend two days praying and spending time together. Dr. Allen Hunt, an Emory graduate by the way, came to lead the retreat. Dr. Hunt is a former Methodist minister who entered the Catholic Church a little over a year ago, and is an amazing speaker, teacher, and witness. His website is www.allenhuntshow.com.

We ended the retreat with this prayer from Archbishop Oscar Romero, a powerful reminder of our role in ministry, one that is full of freedom and hope.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.