Alumni and the Future
Last week I spent some time doing what I truly love in the summer, speaking to youth. I especially love a week like the last one because 1) my family was with me, 2) I served with the guys I love, including Jeff Capps, Josh Hicks, my son Josh, and a rare joy to work with Wes Butler from Texas, a student at the college at Southwestern Seminary.
But two other things brought joy this week in addition to several meeting Christ and much brokenness in the services. First, We had already ministered to this church, Southside Baptist near Gadsden, AL, at a DNow in the spring. I really love going back to places again and again. I love making deeper relationships than, “hi there,” and then “see ya.” Plus, we had an amazing DNow in February with around 50 professions of faith.The final joy is the one I want to talk about. I love speaking in churches where my former students serve. The pastor at Southside is Scott Harris. Scott had me in class in the late 1990s. I have preached for him at another church he served. Scott has in only a couple of year had a remarkable ministry, so much so that he will be a speaker at the Alabama State Evangelism Conference in 09.Scott is a bona fide young leader. He serves a growing, evangelistic church of significant size for the small town of Southside. I have never been in a church in a town like that where such a vibrant youth ministry existed. Many kudos to Brian Harbison, a youth pastor slightly older than me (old guys really can relate to youth) and his wife Gina for their leadership.If you met Scott you would see him as a Southeastern grad. Passionate for souls, broken for his people, eager to talk about things that matter, that is Scott Harris. I pray God will send me hundreds more like him. He is why I teach. I want to teach the radicals, the rambos, the folks who do not have any more sense than to think they can change the whole world. Scott has proven to be quite teachable and has assembled some noteworthy mentors over the years.I love Southside Baptist. I love youth camps. I love seeing God move. But I so deeply love the students I teach who hunger for the lost and who love to talk about such things. Scott, like so many of his generation, expressed true concerns about the future in the SBC, about the aging of those gathering at our meetings, about our inability to separate unchanging theological truths from the necessity of contextualizing the gospel. I was greatly encouraged by being part of a ministry where lives are being changed and where a pastor leads with conviction and passion.Scott gives me hope for the future. But guys like Scott need some hopeful signs as well.