Grandparents who were kids together
November 18, 2009 (Wednesday)
On a Saturday afternoon recently, I attended a reunion of a very special kind. It was a gathering of people who were part of the youth group at Houston’s Liberty Road Baptist Church sixty years ago, more or less. If anyone had looked in through the door last Saturday and asked who those people in their 70’s and 80’s were, they would have been told, “That’s the church youth group!”
How many church youth groups from the 1940’s would you imagine are having reunions? Probably not many. Why would we choose to stay in contact after all these years? Because the church and its young people provided pivotal support for each of us in our personal commitment to Christ as our Savior and Lord.
I was saved in that church at the age of eleven, but when my family moved away across town, I no longer could attend. I went back when I got older and could drive. I showed up one Sunday morning after an absence of at least five years, and was welcomed back by a very loving church family. I received encouragement from everyone and was soon serving in the church and even preaching. In fact, that church, with an average attendance of about 175, had seven preacher boys at one time planning to go off to college and seminary to prepare for a life of ministry.
People came from all over Houston, from New Braunfels and Canyon Lake, from the Dallas area, and all the way from the state of Georgia. It was nice. We spoke of how the church had meant so much to us and how all those in the room had been a blessing to each other. The church no longer exists in Houston, but it will always live in the hearts of those touched by its ministry for Christ.