Welcome to my very first blog post! It's hard to know how to begin this process of sharing my heart and life with the world at large via the blogosphere, but...here goes nothing!
I suppose I can't help but begin by sharing an unexpectedly wonderful experience I had last week. A celebration in honor of Bob and Claudia Mitchell was held at a hotel in downtown Colorado Springs last Thursday, and a few of us Front Range Young Life staff had the honor of helping with the event. For you readers who don't know, Bob was one of the original Young Life club kids back in the 1940s, then went on to join Young Life staff as an adult. I don't know the Mitchells all that well, but every experience I have had with either Bob or Claudia has been undeniably accompanied by the Spirit's presence. Whether listening to both of them share stories about the beginnings of the ministry with summer staff and work crew at the Totem Inn at Malibu Club, or Bob sharing his passion for the Word via lectio divina at a regional staff retreat at Crooked Creek, or Claudia envoking us to understand that the language of God is silence while sitting in a living room by a fire during Advent season, my heart has been pierced by the passion for Jesus that is on display in the lives of the Mitchells. To have been in a room filled with more than 300 people whose lives have been equally - and many much more so - impacted by Bob and Claudia, and by Young Life, was an indescribable joy!
Even more so was the realization that the hallmarks of Young Life's ministry are the same today as they were 60 years ago. Every person who got on the stage last night was cracking jokes, telling ridiculous stories, or singing nonsensical but hilarious songs that they used to lead at club decades ago. The laughter in the room was infectious, much like what I've experienced at club or camp with kids. They still had incredible charisma and commanding presence, and I was in awe of these Young Life greats, these saints whose names would surely be in the hall of faith had it been written a few thousand years later.
And, as I sat at my table of staff friends, I took a moment to glance around at the hundreds of lives that Jesus had grabbed hold of through Young Life over the course of several generations. The Kingdom is greater because of them, and because of what God has done in and through them.
This truly is the best job in the world.
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