A Report from First Friday

Anybody mind if I brag about our youth for a bit?

I didn’t think so.

On the First Friday of every month a church in Petaluma hosts a worship night, inviting everyone from the surrounding churches to come and worship with them. It’s always a full house, and it’s always a good time of worship.
I wasn’t planning on going this time, in fact I usually forget about it until half an hour before it starts and I’m hip deep in one project or another and I don’t feel like tearing myself away from whatever thing I’m doing to drive 20 miles to sing for a couple hours.

This, I admit, is generally a mistake.
This month it was the same story, except this time my house was full of young teens. Teens from our church and from the school that meets there (Jim Bridger School, a good group of kids), all of whom were pretty excited about going. It’s hard not to be swept away when everybody in the house wants to spend their Friday night at church.

So we packed out my family’s 11 passenger van and headed up to Petaluma.

Now these gatherings of many churches are always good because it reminds us that we are not a small church fighting tooth and nail to stay afloat in a stormy world. We are part of the body of Christ. But anyway, I’m getting off topic.

Let us set the stage: the band is playing, the people singing, the lights darkened, many voices raised together in unity to worship God. As the night went on the presence of the Lord became more and more apparent. The youth around me began to weep as they were touched by the worship, by the glory of the Lord testified through song, but what could have been just an emotional high became something more, because as I watched they began to minister to one another.
Groups of two or three or four gathered together in their seats, each of them praying for one another. This wasn’t a youth leader gathering his tiny flock, this wasn’t a group of people following the instructions of the worship leader; this was youth seeing God touching the lives of their friends and peers and then responding to it.

My first response was to covet it. Here were youth that could be going to my youth group, doing amazing things and seeking after God’s glory in my youth group (funny juxtaposition there David). With people like these my youth group could be amazing. I began plotting how I could lure them to Wednesday night services.

Oh how fast God slapped that one down, because as I watched the youth praying I realized that I didn’t want to covet them.

I wanted to become them.

Here were young women of faith with tender hearts. Here were young men leading their peers towards God. Here were youth who cried out to God from the depths of their hearts.

Here was something worth striving for.
Nights like these tell us the truth. It’s not about numbers, because if we have two or three people like these youth, tender hearted leaders who seek God, then what can’t we do?

It’s true. Our youth group is small, but our youth seek God and lead others toward Him. Isn’t that encouraging?

Matthew 18:20
“For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."