#1. Two Busses


THE FOUR WERE BOUNCING SO HARD IN THEIR SEATS they figured old Mrs. McKreedy must have made a left turn down some railroad tracks with the loudest school bus in the fleet. It was a good thing they were on their way home from school because some school books and some papers avalanched onto the floor and hid themselves under some nearby seats. All that bouncing must have been what jarred some brain cobwebs loose starting the whole kid-flavored junkyard discussions.

Over the next few days in McKreedy’s bus the discussions increased beyond trivial. Barb, Jake, Judy, and Nate were becoming more concerned about the numbers of kids in their church youth group shrinking. While most kids are increasingly addicted to computers, cell phones, game boxes, and blogging, these four were wise enough to see this technology livin’ was really a stampede toward a techhead train wreck.

So many of the other bus riders just talked about the ‘latest this’ and the ‘fastest that’. Their conversations never indicated they gave a nanosecond’s thought to where it was all leading. There were even some sketchy rumors that some of the students were using techy tools to cheat on school tests. Judy overheard some of the girls in her Biology class swapping Internet locations to look at sexual pictures and stories.

Bus #2

The discussions of the four continued Wed eve on the church bus headed for their youth group they had such a burden for. In a semi-serious tone Jake told the other three he wished there was some way that God could redirect McKreedy’s school bus to the front of the youth group door and all the school kids that were otherwise stampeding toward a train wreck would learn of real lasting joy.

Without much feeling Barb just blurted out, “well maybe there is. My dad told me more than once the old sayings of the skeptics, ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink’. Another one was ‘it’s harder than eating peas with a knife’. Dad said both of these are not true at all. To get a horse to drink water you simply put salt in his food, and to eat peas with a knife you can very easily squash them a little and then eat them like mashed potatoes.” Barb got one of those looks that said, “not very often, but sometimes dad comes up with some doozies.”

Dean Thomas, the youth pastor, spent some very serious moments teaching all the youth that Satan is working overtime to destroy the church, rain on it’s spirit, and change it to only teach milk principles and no spiritual back-strengthing meat. He taught the dozen or so youth the church is just like a family that must have everyone using their skills and interests in serving the others in the church family.

Pastor Dean’s eye caught the box of hand bells sitting in the corner. He picked up two that were different colors and used them to illustrate to the teens that even little preschoolers need to do their part, need to shake their colored bell when the bell choir leader held up their color of bell. He said, “I ask this very simple but crucial question; what if the red bells decided it was the leader’s job to make the music or that no one would miss the red bells? But more than that, what would you think if there were not enough children coming to church to use the red bells? Now my last question; who do you know that lives close to you that might come and ring the bells if you fervently prayed and then invited them?”

Judy pulled out a tissue and wiped her nose as she visualized a little visitor ringing a bell that in the future would never be in a techhead train wreck. But more than that was the thought that the little bell ringer would hear over and over how deeply God loves that little heart just the way they are, and where they are. This was proved on the Cross that Jesus died on.