Re-Thinking Youth

I haven’t blogged for a while, my heart just hasn’t been here. But the Lord has been doing an amazing work in my life, in my marriage, in my church and if I don’t share some of it I think I’ll just explode!

Last year at this time we buried our churches Pastor, Mark Brown. I’ve been through many funerals but not one that brought so much glory to the Lord. It was amazing to see just a small number of the lives touched by just one man and his family. His ministry changed my life and my husbands life forever in that he enabled us to heal by constantly pointing us to the Bible. He would always say “What does the Bible have to say about that?” or “God’s Word is the sole authority for my life.” and it really was, he truly lived God’s Word.

This past year we also buried my Daddy, not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination but the experience has forever changed my life. Seeing, in my own family, the brevity of life, I’m bolder because I don’t have time to waste, I’m more loving and trying to make more meaningful connections because friends and family can be gone before you even realize it and I’m growing because I want to know my Savior when its my turn to go home.

Kenny and I also faced some trying times through last year, finding a Pastor and learning to wait upon the Lord took on some new meanings for both of us. I can’t praise the Lord enough for bringing us the Pastor he did and at the perfect time! Pastor Keely and Mrs. Joy  are a true blessings and a pair of “go-getters,” the Lord is blessing the work and energy they are putting into the ministry of Bible Baptist Church and Kenny and I are learning lots and lots as we are running along side them.

These things along with many more, too many daily challenges, verses and happenstances to try to mention here, have made lasting changes in my life and in the way I view things. Youth ministry being one of them.

We changed our Youth group name to “ReCHARGE.” It wasn’t done for this purpose but Kenny and I both have been re-thinking how we minister, to whom we minister and what our ministry is saying. The verses we chose to go along with the name is 2 Timothy 3:14-15:

“But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;

And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

We’ve learned a lot in a rather short amount of time and these verses give us the charge to remember and continue. I’ll be sharing some of the things we’ve been learning and trying to apply to our youth ministry that has made ministering AMAZING! Not of works which we have done but that the Lord has done in and through us and in the lives of our teens. He is AMAZING!