FIVE NEW SALVATIONS!!

-Josh Troester

Last night at WILD Youth (4/14/2010) it was for sure a “WILD” night. Our Youth Pastor, Anthony was MIA because of a two-day hospital visit regarding some chest pains. After some not-so-fun test, Anthony was released with no life threatening issues. Praise God!

As 7 o’clock dawned a group of teenagers that numbered about 20 walked through the door. It appeared as if it was going to be a smaller group than normal, until about 20 MORE walked through at 7:05. Forty students plus ten adults packed into FLAG’s main auditorium in expectations of fun, great music, and God’s Word.

After Pastor Tyler did announcements and introduced visitors, we headed outside to play flag football. In a not-so-smart move, I decided to play after just having mouth surgery the day before, thinking that, “flag football is not a contact sport.” After taking two elbows to the face, I had to retreat to the bathroom as one of my stitches had come loose and caused a lot of bleeding. After I got back into the auditorium it was time to worship where The Hicey’s and Matt Compton tore it up on stage for worship.

With a painful mouth, but much excitement and anticipation I shared a message entitled, “A Faith to Die For.” I talked about the unreasonable request that God made to Abraham to sacrifice is only son Issac, how Abraham followed without questioning, and how God came through in the end. I paralleled this act to the very similar situation involving God and Jesus… a father giving up His Son willingly, and a Son giving up His life willingly… only this time no one stopped it, and there was no alternate sacrifice given. At the close of the service an invitation to those that had never accepted Christ was given. Five young people raised their hands and prayed a prayer along with the rest of the room to accept Christ for the very first time.

We celebrated briefly afterwards by applause and yelling, but trust me, Heaven was so much more excited. To those five teens: congratulations on your new decision to follow Christ. It’s only the first step… though a big one, to a great fulfilled life of serving our Creator. To everyone else: continue to bring your friends, continue to minister to them by being Christ to them, and help them find more and more of Christ each and everyday.