When I think back to my times in church, my first and most precious memories are my times spent with the kids in my youth class. The 3-5 services a week made church seem more like a job than enjoyable. The pressure to run the soundboard and produce copies of the services that met the Pastor’s approval made services more stressful than a time to hear from God. The kids would run around the church, goofing off, to the consequence of a lot of disapproving looks from the deacons and other church leaders, which ultimately fell on me.  After everything, it was still worth it to close the door every Sunday morning and open up the Bible to them.

My goal was to take all the stories and questions they had ever had and take them off the shelf. I wanted them to see the Bible as a book of stories about people as real as them and their friends. I wanted to make them think about the deeper parts of each story in the Bible, the human side: the questions the characters must have had and the doubts and fears they experienced. From the pages of the Bible I would pull the characters out and use my imagination to make them come alive for those kids. I thrived on their curiosity once they got into it. By being direct and open to discussion with all of their questions, not just Bible lessons, my classroom became a place for them to work through things at school, home, and church. As part of their journey, church and Biblical teachings became intertwined in their decisions and plans, as a place to be open up to God’s plan through discussion with other followers of God. We talked and laughed and cried about so many topics but they began to listen in ways I never even hoped I’d reach.. It became clear as they returned each Sunday with questions about the lesson from the previous week that they had read their Bibles between classes, in both personal study and by paying attention.

Whenever the adult service would gather for questions and answers, I encouraged them to be as comfortable with the adults as they were in Sunday School class. Eventually my class was the main source of questions for those services. Many of the lessons involved games, to put fun and practice into the association while they learned. We got  together at bonfires, games, or anything else I could do to make sure they were active and engaged in the church regularly. In a matter of months, I took the teenager population from sleeping during the sermon to taking notes for questions later. It meant the world to me to see them grow in Christ. I had found my focus. I loved teaching them. They made studying my Bible fun and challenging. I couldn’t just talk about Solomon and his temple, I had to know the measurements and value of the thing, cause they would ask me anything and everything. Youth Ministry was my calling. After so much fighting, God had brought me there to give me hope in my faith again.

As I was becoming accepted by those in leadership, I was still dealing with my own doubt. I felt like I was missing part of the relationship with Him. Typically, when faced with a problem where I seem to be the only one not getting it I do one thing; take it apart and learn every piece one by one. I assume that because there are others around they must have figured it out, it must work, the issue therefore is me. So I made sure that I learned it better than anyone so I could help others find what I was clearly missing.

My immersion started with learning the rules and doctrine of the Message better than anyone around me. If this thing was to be what my eternal destination was gauged off of, I would own it. My fellow believers were happy to provide me with books and tapes and quotes. Digital copies were passed around like they were the Holy Grail. The amount of money made off of those first 30gb ipods (27ish gbs were needed to hold the message at that time) must have been insane. For much of my church, this became a convenient way to expose themselves to God’s word, which I too fell into. I listened to recordings when driving, read the books on my lunches, and studied my bible at all hours of the night.

Due to this and my Father’s appointment to assisting minister and deacon in the church, it became known that even as a young man, I was ahead of most in doctrinal understanding. I was becoming respected for having my life together.. I was often invited to the men’s breakfasts and other gatherings; it wasn’t long before I was involved on multiple levels. I took over the recording and reproduction of the services at our church, assisting with almost anything technical. Eventually, I was ordained into ministry and spoke from the pulpit on a number of occasions, which was rare at only nineteen.
Eventually as the previous youth minister stepped down, he and the assistant pastor came to me and offered me the position. I laughed. I was young; I didn’t know how to be in charge of kids not that much younger than myself. I prayed about it and finally. During prayer and fasting I felt like the lord had told me to “Be strong and of good courage, and do it: Fear not, nor be dismayed: For the Lord God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord.” (I Chronicles 28:20)

I had never been so nervous in my life. Standing there in the suit I’d preached to hundreds in still left me shaking in front of these kids. I was a young and naive twenty years old about to face my first class of 11 to 17 yr olds. I was tasked by the Pastor and his assistant to fix the problem of the teenagers not being engaged and wanting to give up on church. I was to turn them towards Christ. I had to show them the missing pieces that I, myself, had barely found. They reminded me every day that even I didn’t know how to find God in the Message all the time, but that I was going to find the answers for them, because my pastor and my God had asked it of me.