God must have a sense of humor. Brenda and I are both 59. One of her favorite sayings to me when I dream some new adventure in faith is, "I'm not 20 anymore." The reason I wrote God must have a sense of humor is that we are still working with students at our age. For the past 15 years I have served both as pastor and student pastor at the different churches we served. I thought we had moved past that decades ago. It just so happened in each church we served that leadership was needed with teenagers, and once again we found ourselves rubbing shoulders with young people 45 years younger than us. Even one of our youth workers commented last night she was born in 1990. Brenda and I graduated from college that year. We're getting too old for this.
After full day of preaching and teaching, we did something I still can't believe last night. We held a lock in for our students. We had 30 students attend. We were tired before the lock in even started. It went from 8:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. We played games, had an evangelistic lesson, did our version of the hit food network series "Chopped", and enjoyed a midnight breakfast buffet. I am usually in bed by 9:00 p.m. most nights. We did all that plus added a movie around 2:00 a.m. on a Sunday night. It was a gut check. Our two youngest sons pulled the rip cord and baled out around 2:30 in the morning. We were blessed with two ladies who stayed the course all night long. They were a huge help with us. Others came for part of the night and stayed as long as they could.
Brenda and I finally got to bed around 7:40 this morning. We awoke three hours later and have been going ever since. We are not 20 anymore. I don't know why God has us still working with students. I'm not relevant with their social media, video game driven, high drama, self entitled, and fragile identities. I'm a Bible preacher and teacher and not an event planner. Yet, in the goodness of God He still saves students. We saw the Lord save three last Wednesday night. We baptized a seventh grade girl yesterday morning.
I have never served a group of students like those I see here. You can see the pain in their eyes. Some of these students have been hurt deeply and stumble through their days with gaping emotional wounds. Though it is not spoken out loud, it is evident some of these students have been abused. They carry the trauma with them. A few act out in rebellious ways because hurt people hurt other people. At this young age, we already see the signs of addiction.
Why do Brenda and I keep laboring with students as we are fast approaching our senior adult years. Why do so many other adults give of their time and money over and over again to sacrifice or and serve students? We care. We care deeply about the souls and wellbeing of students. We still go to their ball games. We still try to build relationships with them. We still pray for God to transform them. We still find ways to serve them.
We are not alone. We had several volunteers work that lock in. One man stayed up past midnight even though he had to be at work very early the next morning. Another young couple worked with us past midnight also bringing their young daughter and two five year old twin boys. We even had a few senior adults stay up late to serve as judges for our chopped competition. One grandmother stayed up the whole night serving because her two grandsons were in attendance. Another man stayed with us as long as he could before having to get sleep before work this morning. One lady has held down the fort for years with these students really stepped up last night again. She affectionately calls the students her kids. She is loving as a mother to those students, but can also be as tough as a father when needing to make students behave.
We all left tired and longing for our beds this morning. We may not be 20 anymore, but the eternity and spiritual well being of hundreds of students hangs in the balance. God has to give supernatural strength and the heart to love teenagers who do not always appreciate those labors of love. First Southern Baptist Church loves teenagers and children. Our people go the extra mile to show it. We feed high school students a free lunch each Tuesday just to show we care about them. We offer children's ministry in age appropriate ways teaching Bible truths and explaining the way of salvation. We do these things because Jesus embraced children. He loves the little children of the world. Therefore, we will love them too even though we are not 20 anymore.
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