Jimmy's Calling

What a great day yesterday at our church. The worship team set went really well. Everyone seamed to enjoyed watching the short video entitled "That's My King". The Songsters had a wonderful presentation of "Prayer Prelude". And Ed gave a great sermon on making Jesus' Kingship reign in us.

While this was going on at our church, some 20 or so of our youth were attending our state-wide youth councils. Our son Jimmy said that it was a very good weekend. He really enjoyed it. However, there is one issue regarding this weekend that Elyshia and I had specifically talked about with Jimmy, prior to the weekend. We had actually talked with him about it separately on more than one occasion and spoke with him about it together just before he left for the weekend. The issue is that of the "Call to Full Time Ministry" that we knew would occur on Sunday morning during the worship time. Every year at youth councils there is a moment when they ask the young people if they feel they have been called to full-time ministry as a Salvation Army Officer (Pastor). Elyshia and I both know, from experience, that many young people respond at the time, due to emotions of the moment. In our conversations with Jimmy prior to youth councils we with him talked about the importance of that decision and that it is one that should not be taken lightly. We also mentioned that perhaps he might be too young to begin making life-long decisions at this point. Basically, we told him not to respond at this time. Actually, last year at Youth Councils, I was a chaperon, and when the invitation came to respond to the "Call", Jimmy started to head up to the stage and I basically told him to sit down.

So, as you would guess, upon Jimmy's return from the weekend one of our first questions to him was, "Did you go forward during the invitation for the 'Call to Officership'?" He said yes. At which point his mom and I both just looked at each other. So, he responded either due to the emotion of the moment or God really is calling him to serve full-time. Either way he didn't listen to his mom or me. In this instance, maybe that is not a bad thing.