Tag Archives: youth group

JIMMY AKA “JESUS”

Don’t let this blog post title offend you.  It’s not blasphemy, I promise.  It’s more like a “divine comedy” which less than a hundred people can actually remember witnessing.  It all happened in 1979 at a small church in Decatur, Alabama.  It could have been a disaster, but ended up being a blessing– and a hilarious one at that.

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SID IN THE SPIRIT

Make no mistake about it, I believe in the supernatural– miracles, dreams and visions.  Yes, to believe in the God of the Bible is to believe in His ability to do “anything.”  But not everything that God does looks like a miraculous healing, a dream or a vision. His agenda is much deeper than that.  He is most interested in transforming lives– resurrecting the spiritually dead to new life in Christ.

Here is the question:  If God can do anything, then can He also use anyone in getting His message across?  You’d better believe it!  Have you ever read the biblical story of Balaam and his donkey?  In the Autumn of 1978  I clearly saw it first hand.  I’ll never forget the night I had a brief encounter with a bona fide “hippy” named Sid.  Here’s the story.

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MIRACLE AT SIX FLAGS

log-flumeBeing a youth pastor was loads of fun. Peggy and I served as youth pastors for the first few years of our ministry together at Kingwood, and we still consider those early youth group friendships among our greatest treasures.  We always tried to use creativity and “outside the box” methods to appeal to young people, so that they could see and experience what it truly means to walk with Jesus.  Youth retreats, drama presentations, musicals, discipleship groups, and cutting edge evangelism ruled the day, but when God, in the midst of a routine youth group trip to Six Flags Over Georgia, threw in a real-life, bonafide MIRACLE among us, we learned a lesson we will never, ever forget.

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