I’ve recently started teaching and working with my church’s youth group on Wednesday nights. It’s a small church in a small town, currently only a total of 100 or so regular attenders of the church as a whole. But last night we had 25 kids show up to our youth group. Twenty-Five! That is awesome. I am feeling so grateful for the time I have had so far with this group of 6th-12th graders. Working with youth again has brought back to mind some incredibly fond memories of my time in youth group growing up as well as the time I spent as a youth pastor in my early twenties. These memories have been brewing in me the past few weeks so I just had to write about them.
I can still vividly remember the very first time I ever went to youth group. I was 13-years-old, and my best friends Samantha and Stefany Cruze invited me to a little church with a red door on Ford Pkwy in St. Paul, MN. After that night something in my heart and mind changed and I started going to church and youth group every single week. It was at that little Episcopal church, Messiah Episcopal Church, where I first learned about God. It was where the seeds of my faith were first planted, were watered, and where they grew and grew and grew. Youth group was my home away from home, my second family. It was where I felt safe, where I knew I was with friends, and where I could feel God in an every-day-life sort of way. Pam Rathbun Wurtz, Liz Flemming, and Holly Bagley … the youth pastors I had while at Messiah … were such a big part of my junior and senior high life. They invested so much love and time into me. They challenged me, listened to me, and believed in me. They were the hands and feet of Jesus, and they inspired me to want to be that for others when I grew up.
Eventually, around 17-years-old, I came to a point where I started to feel like I was “outgrowing” my very first church home. My hunger to learn more about God became bigger than what Messiah seemed to be able to offer. But when I left Messiah, I left carrying with me a lifetime worth of memories and amazing friendships that I cannot thank God enough for. Sonshine Festival, Messiah-4-Mexico (one of the BEST mission trips ever and a trip that sealed the deal for me that I wanted to do Youth With A Mission after high school!), meeting my girl Bre Thomas…one of the best friends I have ever had, and a woman I am proud to still call my dear dear friend. Those are just a few of the things that immediately come to mind when I think of Messiah. Every time I visit the Highland Park area, I simply must drive down Ford Pkwy and I slow down just enough to get a good long look at where it all began - at Messiah Episcopal Church. And every time I do, my heart flutters with joy as I recall some of the very best years of my life that were spent there in that little humble church.
I was so grateful to have Holly introduce me to another church with an awesome and thriving youth group. Antioch Christian Fellowship in Eden Prairie became my church home quite quickly as I fell into another amazing church family. Jim Peasley was the youth pastor at Antioch my senior year in high school. The thing I remember the most about Jim was how he always said that God doesn’t have grandkids. Instead He has only children. We cannot live off of the faith of our parents. We have to find our own faith and develop our own relationship with God. That has always stuck with me and it’s a lesson I try to pass on to other youth, particularly youth who have grown up in the church.
It was at Antioch that I got baptized, where I experienced the Holy Spirit in a brand new and tangible way, and where I met even more amazing life-long friends. I could seriously go on and on and on about the people I met at Antioch and the unbelievable memories I made there. I learned so much about God and grew so deeply in my faith because of the people at that church. But there is one person … one specific individual who when I think about I cry both tears of joy & thankfulness, as well as tears of deep sorrow. He was possibly the most influential person in my life: David Plaisted. Even just writing his name is difficult for me to do without tears rolling down my cheeks. David was the epitome of being the hands and feet of Jesus. The way David loved God, loved his family, and loved those he pastored was unforgettable. The only way to put it, really, is to simply say that he was one of the most amazing men of God I have ever met. EVER. David was the final spark that ignited my passion for going into youth ministry. The relationships I’d had with my previous youth pastors at Messiah peaked my interest in youth ministry. But when I got to work with David and the Antioch youth group, that just sealed the deal for me. David taught me what it really meant to have a passion for seeing young people fall madly in love with Jesus. It boiled down to the way he would just be real with them, really cared, and always saw the deep potential for great things in even the most hard-hearted kids.
A piece of my heart broke on March 16th, 2011, the day David died. David … who I loved like an older brother, who helped me learn so much about God & about who I am in Christ, who I would turn to whenever I needed to hear the truth of God proclaimed over me, and who I knew always had my best interest in mind … was … gone? I don’t think I have ever sobbed as hard as I did when I got that phone call.
The time I got to spend getting to know David and living with his family – his AMAZING family – is one of the best gifts God ever gave me. David is gone, but his beautiful wife and children are still in my life and they are still amazing. The time I get to spend having coffee with Joy and having dinner with the Plaisted gang is time I truly treasure. We laugh a lot and enjoy just spending time together. And we aren’t afraid to remember David or to cry together. When we are all together, it feels like David is there with us yet, at the same time we all ache to be able to see him and hug him again. One day we will.
The years I spent at youth group in junior and senior high school , and then later on as a leader while in college, were absolutely instrumental years in developing my faith and developing who I am today as a 32-year-old adult, mom, and wife. I say with 100% sincerity that I hope I can make a difference in at least one of the youth I have the honor of getting to know the way the youth leaders made a difference in my life. Pam, Holly, Liz, Jim, and David … I cannot adequately express with words the impact you have made on my life. God has used you in my life in very powerful ways, and I only hope to pay it forward.
For those of you reading this who knew David, I hope this picture brings a smile to your face!
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