¹ I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: ² Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. ³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; ⁴ and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. ⁵ But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry
.- 2 Timothy 4:1-5

This passage is an accurate summary of what I am learning this week. Even though my group is great, this week is the hardest one I've had yet... for various reasons. Without going into too much detail, I will say that being prepared constantly has proven to be challenging because there is no "time on" or "time off" this summer. The revelation that there should never be an on/off switch to faith or ministry is not a new truth for me... but I have been realizing how great that charge to live with authenticity, boldness, truth and love actually is... I am continually faced with the reality that our faith has been polluted by ill teaching and cultural perversions. When New Age practices, American civil religion, relativism, and our false god of self gratification influence our doctrines, we end up with a mingled mess of religion with a side of Christ thrown in when its convenient.

To steal some thoughts from Matthew West's The Motions,
"I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything?
Instead of going through the motions"

I do not want to live a life of convenience, going through the motions. I want to live a radical life, chasing after God, standing strong for Him, and moving wherever His Spirit tells me to move...

"Fulfill your ministry".... "Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all [patience] and teaching."... what does that look like for my personal ministry here with this summer?