A few years ago, Brent Shoemaker shared these words with the Senior Class of 2008:

As I was tucking Will in the other night I asked him if we would stay little for me… he replied, “no daddy I’m growing bigger.”

The best part about my job is the relationships. I just told Kelly the other day that we are sooo fortunate to have relationships with so many students. We may not have tons of financial wealth, but we are extremely rich.

However, the worst part about my job is also the relationships. Every year when I graduate a group into the world, a part of my heart goes too. Honestly it hurts. Could you guys please stay little?

Having had the privilege of helping to lead the student ministry this year while our church searches for a new youth pastor, I can identify with those words more now than ever… because this past week in Panama City marked our final moments with the Senior Class of 2011.

As we wrapped up the week, we sent everyone to small groups, asking the seniors to stay with us. We sat around in a circle for about an hour, as the seniors all laughed and cried (and even laughed so hard they cried) reminiscing their years in the student ministry. Their leaders spoke words of life, encouragement, and gratitude over them. It was a sweet, sweet time of looking back, knowing that we are now entering in to a season where we all must begin looking ahead.

As I look ahead to the fall, it’s hard to imagine these seniors not being around. They’ve led so well this year. They set the tone week after week at Sublime, both in their consistency and their passion. They raised the bar for every other student in attendance as to what it means to follow Jesus in middle school and high school.

I’m going to miss them.

I’m going to miss seeing Chase Peterson and Jaime Newton running the lights and video each week.

I’m going to miss going through our leadership study with Sahar Massad, Jess Magee, and Greg Hladilek at the office every Monday.

I’m going to miss seeing football players Clayton Castleberry and Gage Henry stick out like a couple of sore thumbs every week amongst all the middle schoolers, and knowing that these two guys—who are probable both physically strong enough to bench press ME—are equally strong spiritually, and great examples for those middle schoolers to be looking up to.

I’m going to miss seeing Stephen Patrick come out of his shell.

I’m going to miss seeing Sydney Adams leave with Lexie Ware each week to continue the discipleship process they’ve been in for the past few years.

I’m going to miss Alexandra Dorrell’s last minute applications, and Mary Tucker’s quirky humor. I’ll miss Brette Abshier and Kenzie Schneider when people talk about England, and Emily Nedvidek whenever Guatemala is mentioned.

Kevin Tillis? He’s a Florida fan… so I’ll miss him a little less than the others.

Most of all… I’m going to miss moments like Courtland Rucker’s baptism, when the entire class came out (unplanned) on the stage to show their love and support for their friend.

Those are the moments where you saw the Senior Class of 2011 for who they truly were… a class that was united… a class that stood together as one and sought after the heart of God, fighting hard for each other every step of the way. A group of young men and women who loved each other deeply, and who weren’t afraid to confront one another whenever it was needed, all the way to the very end. They are a group that challenged and encouraged… a group marked by loyalty and consistency… a group that knew how and when to lead and to follow.

Seniors, now that your time in the student ministry is over, I find myself wanting to ask of you that same question Brent asked years ago. I find myself wishing we could have one more year together (or two… or three). I find myself wishing you’d all stick around here for college, so you could plug back in as small group leaders. And yet, I know God is calling you out to different parts of the world now, to be lights in dark places all over this nation… because He is going to use you to change the world.

But for now, we enter in to a season of “goodbye”… a time of letting go of all that was, in exchange for all that will soon be… and it’s hard. It’s sad. It hurts.

Could you guys please stay little?

It’s amazing the lies we can believe about our lives.

For example…

• The beautiful girls who starve themselves because they look in the mirror and see someone who is fat and ugly.
• The guys who never take a risk because they were brought up believing they were a big failure, and they don’t want to disappoint anyone else.
• The husbands who cheat on their wives because they think what they don’t have is better than what they’ve spent their whole life building.
• The friends who stop talking because each thinks the other is angry.
• The Christians who remain in chains even after they’ve been set free.

The list could go and on. I see this all the time in my own life, and I see it all the time in student ministry.

I sat down with a student recently in the middle of a mostly-empty restaurant. As our conversation unfolded, so did the layers of lies he’d come to believe. It was astounding. And in that moment, God gave me this thought, which I shared with the student:

Me: Look around this restaurant… look at all the tables that fill this room.  What if we believed they were all lions?

Student: We’d be running out of here.

Me: Exactly. But you and I both know the truth is these are tables and not lions.  So how do you think we should respond?

Student: We should probably stay.

Our lives are full of “tables” that our enemy has convinced us are really lions (in hindsight, this goofy analogy has proven to be quite interesting, since 1 Peter 5:8 tells us that the devil “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”).  We spend our lives living in response to things that just flat out aren’t true sometimes, and our response to the lie is drastically different from how we would respond if we knew and believed the truth. As different, in fact, as the difference between responding to a table and a lion.

The result?  Fear. Bondage. Distrust. Bitterness. Anger.

I’m entering in to a season of asking God to help me identify the lies in my life that I’ve embraced as truth. With each of these lies comes a wound, and with each wound comes the need for God’s healing. There are years worth of memories to go back through, but I know the truth of Isaiah 61:1… that Jesus came to “bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners.”

Bring on the lions.