I'm only calling it homework if we also get seatwork on Wednesday

I was always a bigger fan of seatwork than homework....

So a past story of restoration. Which shall also explain why I feel like our church is very powerful in the reason that includes adults and high schoolers.

I started as a jr high youth leader about 10 years ago (wow). I was there for the 7th grade girls who had bonded with my roommate Selena, who was going to stop doing youth group with them because of her move to Denver. I felt very strongly I needed to be there for them since I'd known them since they were 12. What I didn't factor in was that I'd also have to deal with Jr High Boys. They were crazy, insane, squirrelly, and all of those other things that come along with jr high boys. And then we had our first retreat.

Never in my life have I had conversations so profound, or seen someone worship as earnestly as some of those boys did. (And some of them still do.) It completely reworked the idea in my head that somehow we aren't "real believers" until we turn some magical age. I started to believe in (and defend strongly) the idea that once someone receives the Holy Spirit, that makes them just as able to contribute to the body of believers as someone who's been saved for years...has nothing to do with linear age.

~H