great phone call

I got a text from Corey Hoff, a former student here at Grace who has recently been hanging around with our students and serving by playing bass in our praise band. It was unusual, mainly because it was at 8:30 am and I don't recall getting a text saying "call me whenever you get a second" from Corey very often.

Now as a pastor, you never know what you're getting yourself into when you call back in a situation like that. It could be anything from asking for prayer to "can you come get me? my car is broken down." Anything. But what would follow will always be a reminder of why I'm in student ministry.

I could hear the excitement in Corey's voice as he told me that as he was logging off of his facebook account, he received a chat message from a guy he had gone to high school with four years earlier. He told me that this guy was somebody that he went out of his way every day to tell him that "Jesus loves you." He said it had even become kind of a joke between him and the other student. In this chat, Corey's friend told him that at that time in school, he would have basically considered himself an atheist; wanting nothing to do with God. He was chatting with Corey that night because he wanted him to know that he had put his faith in Christ and was trying to figure out what God wanted him to do. He wanted Corey to know that he had been a part of him finding Jesus.

So my first thought was "how cool is that?" That a now-college student would see results from his planting the seed of God's love years earlier.

My second thought was, "this is how it's supposed to be!" I know our students can reach their friends WAY better than I ever could.

My third thought was "how can I get Corey to help us out in student ministry?" We said we'd try to have lunch this next week.

Anyway, I am just so excited to see God still at work in the hearts of our students. Way to go Corey, and way to go God!