In December we decided to offer water baptism for our HS students in the gym (where we normally meet) during a Wednesday night service. In the past, the only 2 options for students to be baptized were in our Sunday worship services along with adults or at our Summer Camp in Panama City Beach, FL. We wanted to offer students an opportunity to go public in front of their friends in our worship context. So we bought a portable swimming pool and set it up in the gym. Several students were baptized that night, including one who took advantage of our spontaneous invitation toward the end. Below is a story I wrote for one of our church communication pieces about a young man who went public with his faith that night.
It all started with a conversation about religion.
That’s how Jacob Gillespie describes the events that led him to Mt. Paran North for the first time. Jacob is a 17 year old student at Sprayberry High School who began attending the High School ministry at North in the Spring of ’09. He was friends with MPN member Amy Sever and one night while they were talking she asked him about religion and his beliefs. He described his current views about the church and religion that he admits were not based on personal experience and just on perceptions since his family “never talked about church or religion”. However, Amy told him that his beliefs were similar to those of her church and invited him to come with her to a service. Though he claimed to be “afraid of church” and not wanting to get “sucked into the mess I thought it was” he accepted her invitation.
He goes on to say, “I had originally planned to wait until I was 18 to go to church just to avoid any influence from my family as to where to go and what to believe. I wanted my beliefs to be my own, but I knew I had an empty place in me that could not be filled by anything the earth has to offer.” So he began attending the High School Wednesday night worship service and Sunday School class with David and Helene Hindman before joining in the Sunday morning services in the Sanctuary. This thing he was once afraid of began to make him feel “complete” and “happy”.
After going to the HS summer camp in Florida his understanding of God began to grow. He said, “I learned that as a human I wasn’t too insignificant to matter to such a supreme entity because he loved me, and it was just that simple.” He started to use the skills he had been taught at camp to pray and read God’s Word, which brought on so many more questions.
Thankfully Amy’s parents, Charles and Sheila Sever were there with understanding and patience to answer his questions. Jacob said, “They would take any question I had, no matter how blasphemous, crazy, or disrespectful it was and calmly answer it because they understood my thirst was simply for knowledge and they were more then willing to help quench it.”
When we announced that we were going to offer water baptism in a HS Wednesday night service during December, Jacob knew immediately it was for him. He invited his family, and they enthusiastically agreed to be there for such a big moment in his life. On that December night Jacob was baptized and here is how he describes what he felt:
“When I finally came out of the water, I didn’t feel much different but somehow, I don’t know, I just felt clean. I know, ‘of course you felt clean that’s the point’ but it was weird. Like no matter how hard I could scrub in the tub there were these metaphorical crevices of muck and grime I just could not clean. I had never really noticed it before because it was all gradually accumulating, but when I came up I knew it was all gone.”
That night, the outward expression of baptism finally matched the inward change in his life over the previous few months. However, this story isn’t just about Jacob Gillespie. It’s about Amy Sever. It’s about her parents. It’s about the Gillespie family. It’s about the cross intersecting with a boy who’s family never talked about religion.
So he stepped into the pool with his family and friends sitting on the front row, and started talking about his new found religion!
This picture is my mom holding my youngest son Tucker. He is 8 months old and already a sweet little kid who loves and fears his 2 older brothers at the same time.
Tucker has had trouble swallowing since he was very small. He nursed well almost from birth but as we tried to make the switch to baby food, solid food, bottles, sippy cups, etc he couldn’t do it. My poor wife has literally tried every kind of bottle known to man…he won’t take it.
At his most recent doctor visit his measurements showed him to be in just the 3% range for weight. So even though he is 8 months old, he measures like a 4 month old. Needless to say the doctor was concerned, and diagnosed him as “Failure to Thrive”. She very much attributes this to the fact that he cannot be sustained and continue to grow at the necessary pace on the consistency of the breast milk that has gotten him to this point. He needs more calories. He needs thicker foods. He needs food that will fatten him up and help him continue to grow like he needs too. She has given us some tips to try and referred us to a specialist. (Thankfully, after much prayer and patience he has begun eating a little better)
I am confronted by this idea of failure to thrive in ministry to students. How many of my students are still trying to live on the milk when they should have already moved on to the baby food, and solids and meat? A statement I heard that I love is, “don’t allow the longevity of a kid in our ministry to cause you to equate that with their spiritual maturity.” We must continue to prod them. We must continue to challenge them with “food” that will help them to grow. Eventually they have to become self-feeders. Corrie can’t be Tucker’s only source of food very much longer or it will be detrimental to his growth. The same is true of our students or me or you. They must be taught the skills of Bible reading, prayer, devotion, meditation, fasting, solitude, worship, etc.
If not we run the risk of having lots of babies who never get off the milk and aren’t strong enough to survive.
“By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby’s milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong.” (Hebrews 5:12-14 MSG) (via youversion.com)
My friends Jared and Ashley Waldrop are moving from their place of ministry the past 4 years to a new place of ministry. They will do very well there, no doubt in my mind.
For lack of a better term, I grew up with Ashley. Our parents were friends before we were born, so we spent lots of time together in sporadic increments in our early years. Life and ministry took our families apart and we saw less of each other in our teenage years.
Jared, I don’t know as well. I met him while we were in college. I have always liked him. We see each other far fewer times a year than I would like. But I watch their life and ministry from afar with great admiration.
As he leaves his current church he created a list of the things they’ve heard him say during his time there in messages, at lunch, etc. It’s a great list, worth your time. Here’s a snippet:
1. Love God. Love People. Let everything else flow out of that.
3. What you do today is forecasting your tomorrow. Your choices matter.
9. You’ll never feel more alive or more like Jesus that when you’re helping others.
10. Spirit vs. flesh – what you feed will win. Feed your spirit.
20. Pray. And stay around people that do.
21. Guard your influences. Guard your eyes and ears. Keep the Godly close.
24. Sowing wild oats isn’t worth it. Ever. You reap what you sow.
25. Go. Mission trips, conferences, retreats… get away, let God speak to you.
26. Be a catalyst for Godly change without becoming cynical. Keep a firm resolve while staying tenderhearted.
Last night was a powerful night. We started a new series called “The Price is Right” and will, for the next few weeks, be looking at the cost of God’s “free” gift of grace.
The talk last night was a typical week 1 message. I defined some terms (grace, mercy, forgiveness, etc) to make it easier for us to all move forward together in the remainder of the series. I then looked at Romans 6 and to the flagstone verse of John 3:16 to really understand what grace was all about and how we are supposed to respond.
I was very transparent in a story from my past about getting into credit card trouble in college and my parents “bailing me out”. They extended grace to me by paying for my mistakes. I described the difference in my use of a credit card and my friend’s use of his dad’s “in case of emergency” card.
I talked to our students about the difference in genuine struggles with sin issues and temptation vs a flippant attitude about the grace of God.
I then confronted these 2 groups of people that I felt like were sitting in the room listening to my talk. Those who were genuinely struggling with sin issues, but sincerely trying to overcome them with the help of the Lord were only swiping “daddy-God’s” credit card of grace in case of emergency, and I encouraged them to keep fighting, keep chasing, don’t give up.
But there are those who swipe “daddy-God’s” credit card of grace often to fulfill their own desires and on a whim. Then they come to Him on Sundays and Wednesdays and hand Him all their receipts and ask Him to pay the bill. They do this week after week after week. I stated that for these people, “you may have misunderstood the point of Jesus coming to earth.”
The band came back up and sang “Decode” by Paramore (one great lyric: “How did we get here when I used to know you so well? How did we get here? Well I think I know.) Then I closed us out.
- I didn’t bring our students to the altar.
- I didn’t have them repeat after me.
- I didn’t “finish” the sermon.
Instead of putting a big bow on the end of it, I left it for them to “finish” on their own.
Is that safe for students?
How do you feel about that?
Last night the high school small group that Corrie and I host had a cookout. We grilled burgers and hot dogs, had chips and soft drinks, and concluded with brownies and ice cream. Some of the students sat outside at a patio table while others sat in the living room on our couches. Still others went between those 2 places and the kitchen table. We concluded the night playing some games. For this one week there was no Scripture read. We didn’t unpack any theological issue of importance. And yet…
It was one of my favorite weeks of the semester. They were engaged. They were interacting. We had fun. They opened up to one another. I heard conversations about prom. They talked about homework assignments, teachers they loved, and ones they didn’t. Some of the newer students talked about recent Wednesday nights, and some of our older students encouraged them to keep coming because “it only get’s better.”
I’m not saying we shouldn’t open the Bible. We want to help students grow in their relationship with the Lord. But man, it was so much fun watching relationships and community happen.
I love the content and the creativity of this promo for a new series at Cross Point in Nashville. Their pastor, Pete Wilson, blogs regularly and has commented here a few times. Plus, I found out a few months ago that several people I went to high school with work at or attend Cross Point so that’s pretty cool.
This is my personal blog. Most of what is written is my opinion, observation, original thought, or things I find interesting somewhere else. While I am employed by Mt. Paran North, the things expressed here are not endorsed or necessarily accepted by Mt. Paran North or it's leadership. So don't go sue the church because you don't agree with something I write. Just post a comment and tell me I'm an idiot. It'll just be better for all of us.
