You have until tomorrow to decide...

I got a call from Spencer tonight. He threw out a simple proposition for me: Are you interested in co-leading a small group with a student and mentoring that student in leadership things? Oh, and you have about a day to decide.

I have been praying about an opportunity to be involved somehow in getting a Christian group going. I had no clue whether it would be student, faculty, faculty/staff, or something else. A part of me felt that it would likely be student-level, so this isn't too surprising. But co-leading a small group... As an undergraduate, we had student leaders and no faculty involved in our group. So the thought is a little odd, especially because of the age gap that I recall seeming much larger back then.

In the middle of typing this, Spencer called back to tell me that the student (Jack) is interested and has been thinking about this for a while. We're going to meet tomorrow morning to talk and make that first connection to see if this can go forward.

Things that I'm considering:

• Time Commitment - I don't know what my time commitments will be this year. I don't know how many committees I'll be serving on and how much time those things will take. I also don't know what the true teaching load will be because I've never taught three classes simultaneously before.
• Availability - This is different from time commitment because I may not be available to be part of a small group if it meets in the evenings. I teach classes Monday-Thursday evenings getting out at 8 or 9 PM. I don't know if this schedule is compatible with Jack's schedule.
• Group dynamic - Does it matter that I'm a faculty planning to hang out with students? Off the top of my head, I don't think so... at least not significantly. I'm a younger faculty, so it's not like I'm some 40-year old with a wife and kids. I'm just leaving the student life (though the grad student life is different from the undergrad student life).

I don't have any other thoughts at this time. It's all a matter of meeting Jack tomorrow morning (about 11.5 hours from now, with 8ish of those hours asleep) and proceeding from there (well, praying about it tonight).

One last thing: Why do I need to decide by tomorrow? They are going on their leadership retreat this weekend, and the staff are heading up first tomorrow afternoon. This is a pretty normal schedule, as at Santa Barbara, we had our leadership retreat the weekend before welcome week, or about a week and a half before school starts. (It also doesn't surprise me that this is happening at the "last minute" because there are lots of things that happen in quick succession just before school starts. If I think it's the right thing for me to do, I'll probably go on the retreat...