Dear Parents of TheDeep & Kids Min Fam,
I wanted to share with you all something very neat with you. As many of you know, I’ve been blessed to operate as the Kids’ Pastor here at The Healing Place since February 2009! It has been a fantastic time for me and our kids. Granted it was a bit strange for everyone at first.
I first felt a call to youth ministry back when I was still in high school. I had been very active in our youth ministry, FewZion Youth Ministries, pretty much the entire time I was in high school & even on my breaks during college. By God’s grace I was able to attend Southwestern Assemblies of God University to receive further training in the scriptures & in youth ministry.
When I graduated in May of 2008 I came home to serve as the Media Director while I searched for my place as a youth pastor. I applied to many different places, several of which looked very promising. Yet God kept closing door after door. Not going to lie it was kind of discouraging.
Around the December 2008 a young lady came into our youth group. I had been close to her family in the past and was excited to see her again. I told her that before she left to let me know because I wanted to be able to come down and say hi to her family. When I came down stairs I was shocked to see her mom and younger siblings all sitting in the lobby while our interim pastor was preaching.
When I asked what was going on they said “well you guys don’t have anything for the kids on Wednesday nights.” I was in shock! I had no idea that we didn’t have a program for them. Over the next few weeks I started to take a little extra look at what exactly we had going on for our kids. During this time God started to deal with me; speaking very clearly, “if you don’t like it, what are you going to do about it.”
I struggled with this because I know in my heart of hearts that I’m called to work with youth! I’d trained to work with youth. I knew nothing about kids. In fact I was scared to work with kids because I was afraid I was going to break them! But still this desire to work with them started to grow. Couple of weeks later the deacons came to me, asking if I’d pick up our Kids’ Ministry and build it up. I could not say no. Thus began this great adventure that I’ve been on for the last several years.
About 6 months ago God started dealing with me about my first passion, the youth. I started to feel a pull back to youth ministry, specifically the youth ministry here at THP. After much time and prayer I sat down and spoke with my pastor about this tugging in my spirit. Pastor and I talked about it for a bit and then he revealed to me that the Lord had been speaking the same thing to him & Pastor Matt (present youth pastor).
With all that said, dear friends, I’m here to inform you that this is my last post on this blog. Starting last night I am now the Youth Pastor at The Healing Place in Shreveport, LA. I’m proud to say my dear friends Dana & Corey Van Noppen have stepped into the TheDeep and will be running it from here on out.
Go Deep,
Dallas Mora
Adventures in Children's Ministries 