Have you ever walked out of a church service knowing today’s sermon had your name all over it? You should feel so honored that the God of the universe maneuvered everything to minister to your need. Does He do that as a regular thing? My experience says He does. Every day. God is at work.
What a mighty God we serve!
This is from my journal from May 3, 1999—
“Every once in a while something happens that lets you know God is really active in what you are doing. Sunday a week ago, I preached about young people. I called it “the 5 cries of youth.” Today’s young people are crying to Belong, crying for Unconditional love, asking for Instruction, needing and will someday appreciate Limits, and finally, for Time. (Resulting in the acrostic B.U.I.L.T.)
Two solos were featured in the service–both by young women, one in her teens. And we had visitors in the service. Now, that’s not unusual. Often we’ll have folks who are in New Orleans temporarily and staying at a hotel near the airport and drop into our services. But on that day, we had 55 visitors–all teenagers (with a few adults) from two high schools in Wisconsin. They were part of two high school bands in some kind of competition at the University of New Orleans. That morning the leaders had asked, “Who wants to go to church?” and 55 (about half) had responded.
Most of the youths indicated they had never been in a Baptist church before. Since this was just after the Littleton, Colorado tragedy, I talked about it in the sermon. Later, the leader came up with tears in her eyes. She said, “Pastor, you have no idea how appropriate your message was for some of the kids in our group. Some of them are dealing with the very issues you touched on.” She gave me a hug.
As far as I know, the next time we all see each other will be in Heaven.
I can go for days on that kind of encouragement.” (end of journal)