Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Appropriate pride

"Proud" was how I felt at our most recent worship service at Grace Fellowship! I know pride is a bad thing but in this case it was, I think, appropriate.

Our youth led the service on Sunday--greeting, ushering, leading worship, acting in a skit--and our youth minister preached his first sermon. For all of us at Grace it was a day to thank God for how He has blessed our youth ministry, even though we have never had a numerically large group. We have operated with a ministry philosophy of building a core group of teens who loved the Lord and lived out their faith.

The results "on display" Sunday...

*Our worship leader began as a thirteen year old just learning to play the guitar, taught by our then youth minister (now our associate pastor). Kyle is a student at Biola University.

*Our pianist, Tessa, has grown up in our church and recently graduated from high school.

*Our man who led in prayer, Brian, is a product of our associate pastor's youth ministry and now works as a volunteer with our teens.

*Our skit team was composed of five teenagers, including our associate pastor's daughter, Morgan, who was five when she arrived at Grace.

*Our missionary spotlight was given by Beka, recently returned from four weeks in the Ukraine as a completion of a class project from Simpson Bible College.

*Our "offerng leader", Richard, found Christ a couple of years ago out of a life of drugs, and now works with our teens and is headed for Moody Bible Institute in January.

*Our speaker, Christian, is now our youth pastor, though his roots go back to earlier days when we supported him as a young missionary doctor in Guatelmala while he was in the service.

It is no wonder I am smiling...and "proud" in an appropriate way...of our kids at Grace and our ministry team who serves them faithfully!

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