What Happened Last Night

If you have a moment I would like to fill you in on just a small part of what happened at The StoreHouse last night.

Sometime just after 5:00 p.m. the people began to trickle into the building. When they came in they were immediately greeted by the smell of a fantastic meal emanating from the HeBrews Café. That meal did not arrive in a refrigerated semi-trailer to be popped into the microwave and warmed up. It happened because loving people realize the importance of Christian fellowship and use the gifts that God has given them to prepare a fellowship meal for their brothers and sisters in Christ. Among, and along with, those coming to enjoy a meal together was a group of people arriving an hour before service. They come early every week so that they can climb aboard The StoreHouse fleet of vans and shuttle buses that go out into the streets of Greencastle. They give up their time in order to bring children and young people to a place where they can hear a message of hope. Without those dedicated people NONE of those 80 – 100 souls would have heard that message!

It takes a lot of dedicated people to do what we do at The StoreHouse on Wednesday nights. Some cook meals, some drive vans and buses, some ride along with the drivers in order to keep order, still others come to help teach and to assist in the various ministries and classes that take place all over the building. They do this week in and week out without fail. I am truly thankful for each and every obedient servant of God that makes all of this possible. My thankfulness is not because we pull off getting so many kids into the building. I am thankful because of the victories that take place in both small and great ways every week.

Please allow me to tell you about some victories that I saw last night in youth ministry. The first victory is that over 40 Middle School and High School students who have parents that never take them to Church showed up at THEIR CHURCH last night. They never miss!! They are always here!! If you would ask them if they go to church they would say, “Yeah, I go to church at The StoreHouse every week!” We had somewhere between 48 and 54 young people in service last night! Eighty percent of them come from unchurched families! We would have had about 60 kids here, but we were missing some of the kids from families that attend The StoreHouse on Sundays. What do we do to keep them coming back every week? Well, this week’s message was based on Colossians and was very similar to the one preached on Sunday. As a matter of fact every week the message is similar to the one preached on Sunday. We are preaching through the Bible on Wednesday nights! We preach God’s Word and they keep coming back!

Does it work? Well, when the altar call was given there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 young people at the altar. Only two of them have parents that take them to Church! Yeah, it works! Why does it work? Because of faith, hope, and love! Don’t give up the faith! There is hope! Keep loving on these hurting kids! Keep serving! Keep giving! Keep praying! Keep believing! Keep the faith!