conGRADualations class of 2009!

by Nick Cleveland
2009...wow the years between now and my graduation keep adding up! At HSM we celebrated the class of 2009 on May 17th with a fantastic morning including the band (I'll say more about that in a minute), special music, a powerful testimony, message, and videos highlighting the graduates lives and ministry at Grace! Over 300 were there to celebrate this occassion and encourage this class to keep the faith..."over the long haul".

But it got me thinking too...as I stood in the back and watched most of the morning go by I realized a couple things:

(1) High School ministry is so about sending...our band was phenomenal! It has taken a while to get to this point, but they rocked out. And our leader and others in the band are in the class of 2009 and now not in HSM anymore...we're relegated to starting over and doing it again next year. This forces the hands of those of us involved in this thing called student ministry to remember we're training leaders to send back into the church.

(2) Make sure your big rocks are their big rocks... The way we do our graduation celebration tells us what our BIG ROCKS of ministry are in the eyes of the participants. Our video features life shots of each graduate from birth to senior picture narriated with a survey they completed. Each student was asked the question, "What was your favorite memory of youth group at Grace?" Man, just listening to those answers let me know what the class of 2009 valued from our ministry. In this case I was delighted to hear graduate after graduate (30+ in all) reference things like small groups, friends, Sunday mornings and mission trips...reminding me that of our 4 big rocks...they nailed them all! Man am I glad in this case our big rocks were their parting big rocks!

I'll leave you with the words I left the class of 2009 with...

Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you'll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.

Congratulations class of 2009!