So here's the thing about goals...

I am a goal oriented person. I am also a lazy perfectionist. This is like the dark side and light side of the force swirled together to make a mucky mixture of not quite black, not quite white, but not exactly grey either.
Maybe some definition of terms would be helpful.
Goal oriented- With a goal in mind decisions made fall under a defined scope- if an option leads you toward the goal- do it, if it moves you away from the goal- don't. Simple right?
Lazy Perfectionist. If I can't get it right the first time, I'm too lazy to bother to continue trying. Moving on...

Old Goal
For many years my goal was to be in "full-time youth ministry." That phrase in itself is kind of cryptic mostly because if you are involved in youth ministry at all you are in it full-time whether you like it or not. It's just not a punch the clock and go home type of thing. Anyway, more specifically I wanted to be in PAID ministry, where I wouldn't have to be in a machine shop anymore but could focus my efforts entirely on youth ministry. Ok, so I'm there now. Goal achieved. I have been in this ministry post for almost 2 1/2 years. Scary. So herein lies the problem, my original goal was in front of me for a long time and now I found myself goal-less for quite a while. The good news is, I have a new goal, the bad news is it's going to be a lot harder than accomplishing my former goal.
New Goal
So here it is: Help Build a Healthy Church.
I say help because Jesus said He was going to build His Church, so it's not my job to build the Church but encourage the Church to be what He had already designed. This is not an easy task and troubling for me in my current position. Being the Youth Pastor I am subject to the "powers that be" and though the "powers that be" would not disagree that building a healthy Church is a good idea, I really mean it and am willing to do whatever it takes to get there. I believe that the idea of a healthy Church gets a lot of lip service in this context but hard decisions need to be made that the "PTB" aren't willing to make.
So here goes the decision making paradigm: If every decision is made with the goal in mind and whether or not said decision moves us toward or away from the goal how do I go about striving towards the goal? It has been an almost constant struggle for me over the past few months whether or not the Lord wants me to stay in this particular context, CBC.
There are two main issues I can see that are keeping us from the goal of building a healthy Church: #1 the "PTB" #2 the size of the congregation. I'm not sure if these are real obstacles or imaginary ones but either the Church needs to get past them, I need to get over them, or I need to leave.
The problem with the "PTB" is that, well, the list is long and I think I have already outlined the major issue. This obstacle is very real.
The problem of the size of the congregation may be the imaginary obstacle. Authentic community is key to developing a healthy Church. At present our group is spread too thin to connect with one another. The saying "if the devil can't slow you down he'll speed you up" is spot on in this context. We are racing towards nothing at this point but frustration and fragmentation. I think this obstacle, imaginary or not, is not insurmountable but there is going to have to be some serious thought put into a strategy to get beyond it. The thought of the church context my wife grew up in is getting more and more attractive in my mind and can be summed up in one word: "tiny." The congregation of 40-60 stands a much better chance of truly connecting in Christ centered community than the congregation of 200. It's not impossible but it's a lot bigger than me.