The People’s Purpose

“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!” - Psalm 133:1

This weekend, we had our youth lock-in. So much time and preparation to make it possible. I am so thankful for volunteers. We had a total of 90+ people there…4 youth groups were there…and over 30 volunteers. WOW! I call that a successful team. As time began to creep up on us, we were now 30 minutes away from the door opening…15 minutes…panicking making sure everything is okay…5 minutes…OH NO FORGOT TO PRAY! (just kidding)….and here comes 7:00PM and kids begin to flood the registration lines. 

I will say it again, I am so thankful for my leaders…Jacob & Brittany Dunn (Youth Pastors of Nortonsville Church of God), his leaders, Tim Hindman (Youth Pastor at Enon Church of God), his leaders, Victory Hill Church of God leaders, and of course my wife! Everyone that helped, made everything possible for every youth that came. It was a 15 out of 10, I’d say! 

Events come and go, but the most important thing I learned through this lock-in, was unity. It is so important for God’s people to be unified. Yes, we all have our ups and downs. We are stressed with this or that, but there always needs to be that constant voice in your life telling you to calm down. There was one point during the night, somewhere around 3AM and I was starting to think about packing stuff up…get stuff back to where it needed to go…etc., then we would run into certain problems throughout the night (not major issues), just issues that needed to be addressed. It came to a point to where the other youth pastors were seeing my stress so they came and asked what was up, I told them, and I remember Jacob Dunn (Youth Pastor at Nortonsville Church of God) look at me and just say, “take a deep breath”. I love these people with all of my heart. Every leader there was my backbone for the night. They were my sanity. (You might be saying, “umm…Stewart, you don’t need to be posting the “bad” stuff on your blog” – sorry, I’m human, I’m not perfect, and I was created to be a real youth pastor…not a perfect one.) 

I guess you can say this blog is me just verbalizing over and over again my thankfulness to the youth pastors and every leader that came out, but on top of that, God taught me something that night that I want to share with you. Through the storms of life that this world has coming, God wants unity between His people. That is the only way we will be able to stand. You need people in your life that will surround you with prayer, encourage you, help you, and even tell you when to take a breath. I am SO thankful for my wife, the youth pastors, and youth leaders who came out. You all made it possible for me to do what I did and to preach what God laid on my heart. Again, I thank you. 

Unity is God’s purpose for His people in this point in time.