Series: Things I Wish I Knew about Ministry Before-politics

As a 20 yr old I had already been working with a youth group for a couple years as a leader. I was not qualified or called, I just didn't want to attend the college group because, I thought, it was boring and none of my friends went.
The summer of '99 God called me into ministry. It was a definate calling. The beginning of the summer I thought the idea of being a youth pastor was ridiculous! By the end of that summer there was nothing else I wanted to do! God changed my heart.
I had a passion for students. I wanted to love them and teach them and do life with them...and that was all I wanted to do.
That passion carried me through school (something I have never been that good at). Right out of college I worked part-time at a church as well as at a crisis intervention home for teenagers. I loved it. I watned to do ministry full-time but was not given the chance yet.

It is now 10 years after that summer of 1999 and I have been through so much in ministry. God has done so much. I have been able to do those things that God gave me the passion for but there are some things that I know about now that I wish I would have known about back then.

POLITICS:
(In an effort to keep this short. i am not going into details or a full spectrum of thoughts of pros & cons of politics in the church)
As a young newbie in vocational ministry I rebelled against politics in the church. I thought they were silly and showed favortism and didn't really have a place at all in the ministry.
While I still believe that politics in the church are silly and do show favortism and shouldn't have a place in God's service I now understand that they do and probably always will. I wish I would have understood the importance of learning how to "play along" earlier.
Thank God, I have not been fired because of politics or anything like that but I think many things would have gone smoothier or would have come easier if I had been willing to do my due diligence and get the "right" people in my corner or responded differently to the "right" person or parent.