Steve and I got an update last night from a very treasured friend from my high school youth group who became Steve's best friend and has remained that way and will for life. He hadn't talked to him for about four months so the update was filled with both sad and happy news. After Steve shared with me the jist of how this friend is doing we fell in awe of the majesty of our God, for the gift of friendship, for the gift of God's goodness to His people as we can have an alive relationship with the Maker and Creator of all the universe and that He truly does interact intimately with us on a personal level!
I will try my best to explain why i titled this blog the way i did and tie the first paragraph in with the idea without giving out personal information. Please bear with me as i try my best to formulate my ideas and express my heart and long time passions.
If you have read a few posts back "Shower Song" you know a bit of history of my high school youth group and just the small underlying factor of what we experienced. There were many people in that group of teens that were changed for life by the tangible love of a real Savior alive and active in our midst, both taught, preached, and lived out within our group like i have never seen it before, all lead on by God alone.
Our youth Pastor, Dan Berg, didn't have any specific pastoral training or youth certification and neither did the others who helped out like Mark and Theresa Redden, just to name a couple of dear friends now missionaries in Australia fighting to love the people there with the gospel of Jesus everyday for over ten years. Dan was just a regular guy who had his life radically turned around, saved by Jesus, and had a passion for God's word and sharing it with others. He was asked to start a youth group at Calvary Chapel Westminster, and i believe there wasn't even any kids at the time. He prayed that God would send him just one kid, just one kid with a love for Jesus, and God did (someone please correct me if you are to read this and i get the story slightly off or something, not that i even have any readers, haha). Then the one kid turned into three, and one of those three was Peyton Jones, who is now a pastor in Wales (Europe). Peyton got saved and started sharing the gospel at his high school (Marina in HB) and then they started an outreach night in Huntington Beach and the group turned into a growing 60, sometimes reaching 100 even, just by teaching verse by verse through the gospel of John, having worship time, and allowing the kids to experience God.
Dan and the other few leaders invested true Jesus love into us kids. He would take the time to challenge us what we thought a Bible verse meant or how it might be lived out. He took the time to answer our questions and to train others to be there to answer other's questions. He discipled us and made sure we were equipped for the trials of life, and for 98% of the group, that pretty much was happening every day. For me, coming from being raised in the church and being part of a youth group all my life it was very special to me that Dan actually took the time to simply just know my name, even from the first time i showed up at Murdy Park. I had been a regular attender at a normal size youth group for three years prior to this and the youth pastor could not even remember my name, seriously!
So, looking back, over twenty years later, though i know God's providence was in order, i see that Dan and the other adults that took their time investing and loving us teenagers with the love that the gospel brings made an impact on the lives of many, and not just for that time period. It created a relationship with the Living God that would carry us all both then, through the growing pains of our twenties, the stabilizing of our thirties, and now as we are all heading to the end of that, looking into our 40's with joyful expectation to lead our own children and others into gospel truth.
So, why love the youth? Why take the time to listen to them? Soooo many many reasons but looking back to the start of this blog is the answer. Loving the youth for the sake of the gospel, to bring them hope, to show them there is a future in Jesus, to point them to a love that will never ever fail, just that one little chance to do so with one teenager while they are yet very young, might give them a chance through Jesus to make a sad story happy!
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