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.