Why Youth Ministry Matters Pt. 1

In this episode, Pastor Tyler interviews Charlee on the subject of "Why Youth Ministry Matters". Charlee shares her perspective on the challenges young people face today, and breaks down her story. It's an inspiring interview from a young person growing BIG in Christ!  Listen and be blessed!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hey guys, my name is Tyler Watson, youth pastor here at Grace Youth, and we hope you are encouraged today and blessed by this podcast. And if you're a young person who needs a good community of believers and a place to fit in, we hope that you'd consider Grace Youth here in Astoria, Illinois. Every Sunday night at 5 p.m. We'd love to see you. Hey, buckle up. We got a good podcast for you today. We hope that it's a blessing. I'm here with Charlie Pittman, and we are pumped. This is the Grace Youth Podcast, and we're doing a series on why youth ministry matters. And I'm excited to have you, Charlie, here because you're a great leader in our youth ministry that we're starting here at Grace Youth. And I think you're gonna have a lot of good input on why youth ministry matters. And so tell us a little bit about you, though. Did you grow up here in Astoria? Is this your hometown? Uh what do you do? What grade are you in? Uh what sports do you play? Just g just give us the nitty-gritty.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Okay. Um, I have lived in Astoria all my life. Uh most of my family's here, like on my dad's side. My mom's family is farther away. I am a junior. I'm gonna be a junior. And I do palms and softball. And I do stats for the football team.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah, what's your favorite thing out of all those things?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Oh, softball.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Softball. Really? What position do you play in softball?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Um, last year I was left fielder and third, everything except for catcher, basically. Or pitcher. And I'm working on being a catcher, hoping to be a diversity catcher this year.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Really? Do you want like is catcher your favorite position?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah. I've played it all my life except for freshman year, whenever I got hurt, so I couldn't. Oh besides that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yeah, so do you like fielding more or hitting?

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Um probably fielding because I get really mad during hitting and it just makes me mad because I'm not good at hitting.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

You've grown up here most of your life. Um what is something that you know? I've only been in Astoria uh for half a year now. What what is something unique that you would say uh you're opinionated about with Astoria? Like, is is there a certain favorite thing that you like to do here, favorite place to eat? And if so, why?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Um, well, we don't have very many options for places to eat. No, we don't. I like State Street grill, it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah. It's interesting too, because they're under new leadership.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

So uh, which I think they're gonna do great there. So it's it's good. And I think a lot of the stuff is still the same. Yeah. So that's kind of nice.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

More options, I think. Yeah. For like lunch and stuff, and they're open for dinner on Thursday. Are they really? Thursday through Saturday, they're open for dinner now.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Like now?

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah. Wow. When it was the old people, it was just Monday through Saturday. Yeah. Twist and lunch.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

And when we say old people, we're not calling Jeff old.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

No.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

We're just saying that previously owners. Uh just so you know, just so we're clear.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

So um, I've got to know, what's your favorite thing to eat there?

SPEAKER_00 3:39

That chicken bacon ranch sandwich I have to lunch is pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Wait, the chicken bacon ranch? Yeah. Like really good? Yeah. Was it like grilled chicken?

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Crisp. I got it. You can get it curled or crispy. And I got crispy. Crispy. I got you.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

That's awesome. So, what's going to school at Astoria like? You're entering what grade now?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

I'll be a junior.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Junior. So you're only going to be in the youth ministry for two more years.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah. What what's that about it?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yeah, what's what's school like at Astoria being a junior?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

So my class is actually the biggest, like, in the whole school. We have 25.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

And so like it's very close. Like, you know everyone, and if you mess up something like little, they're they're gonna hold a grudge for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Really?

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Why why do you think grudge holding is such a big deal in our community? Like, because I've heard it. I hear it from adults, I hear it from young people. Like, is it just because everyone is kind of just magnified on each other because everybody knows everybody?

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Would you say that forgiveness is a hard thing for people in our community?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

I would say yes, like besides your close, close friends. Like, they forgive a lot easier than just your regular classmates.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Yeah, yeah. Have you felt like maybe you've been on both sides of that? Like you've not been forgiven for certain things, or people have held grudges against you, or maybe like you even find yourself on the opposite side of that, where like maybe you've held grudge against other people.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah, so it's just it's just small community type type things.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

What it's like being in a small small town.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

So, like you like football. I know you're pretty involved in that.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

I love football.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Um, did I hear you take a cowbell to the games?

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Is that legit?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Yeah, so like our stat chicks, it's me, a couple other friends. We have a horn. So if there's a touchdown, we blow our horn. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

That is awesome. I love that. I'm excited for football season around here. I'm excited about the youth ministry and what God's doing. So previously, you know, this is all new, but why does youth ministry matter? Like, obviously, I'm a believer in it, and obviously it's a big part of what I do. But for you, why does youth ministry matter? Why do you believe that what we're doing here at Grace Bible Church is actually going to work, is actually going to impact this community? Why do you think that?

SPEAKER_00 6:10

I think it's something that we haven't had before, and I think that it will change in a good way. It'll benefit a lot of us. I think benefit's better worth of change. Because I'm not hating on anyone, we just haven't had the opportunity to do something like this, and I think it's gonna be good for all of us because before we like we have FCA on Thursday every other Thursday, but like that was really the only thing that we had besides just going to church on Sunday, right? And I think that it will help a lot of us like grow a stronger connection with God and just be more involved, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

What do you think though, when you hear the word youth ministry, what do you think people automatically think youth ministry is going to be? Like, hey, come to my church this Sunday night, we're having youth ministry. Like, what what what do you think? What do you imagine that's going to be in your head? Not knowing what we do or what I'm doing, and every you know the church is doing, like in your mind, if someone asks you or someone, you know, you ask a friend to come to youth ministry, what do you think their mindset, what their mindset goes to?

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Probably like church for pe more for people our age.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Do you think a lot of people think that youth ministry, especially at your age, is something that's probably gonna be boring? Like, do you think that it's going to be like, oh, we're just gonna sit around and read our Bible and sit in a circle and it's just gonna be minor scaled? Or do you think like young people actually think like, oh, this might be something that's actually really cool. I want to go check it out.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

I think it very much depends on the person.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Like, some people probably do think it's like, oh, I'm going to church and I'm reading my Bible in a circle with a bunch of other kids.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

But I think it's just really hard for me to answer this like on a basis level because I know like how good it's gonna be. Yeah. And so it's like hard to like not think about it.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

For sure. For sure. Well, obviously, like within our youth ministry here, we're a small church in a church. Yeah. So like it's not an average youth ministry because I'm an extremist, I don't do anything halfway. Yeah, and the fact of our church leadership and our people here, we have such good buy-in. Everyone wants to see a movement in young people in this community and surrounding it. And so everybody's pitching in. Yeah. And I guess for me talking to you and trying to get on the level of a junior in high school in 2026, is trying to figure out why do you think your friends are going to want to come to youth ministry?

SPEAKER_00 8:55

I think the main reason is it's new.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

No.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

And we don't have a lot of change around here. Like it's the same all the time.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

It's pretty something we haven't had before.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

What what other outlets do you think young people have around here?

SPEAKER_00 9:12

It's basically like besides like are you talking about like just like just in general?

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Like, what do what do young people do for fun around here? Like, what is there to do?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Nothing. Like there's sports, and then like you hang out with your sports people, fishing. Yeah, fishing and hunting. That's a big thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

How many of you okay? I'm just asking some like real questions here. How many, because I'm gonna ask the other young people this too, but how many like people in your class? There's 25 of you, right? Yeah, what percentage of them do you think like might vape or do drugs right now?

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Ooh, my class is there's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

There's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

I would say like less than half, but like probably like a quarter. Do you think about it for sure?

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Do you think people are like actively exp like experimenting in that right now?

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Is it more like the vaping scene going on?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah. The sad thing is is like I've seen some people that like are starting to like go into more of it, and like you tried so hard to like be like, don't like there's better ways.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah, well, and like the impact that it has on your health long term, yeah, your brain, your psyche, your spirituality, yeah, everything. And so, like, if we're being honest, these influences are happening because I would assume a lot of young people are bored.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

And the availability of things that are around them. I think that it is our opportunity here to change the dichotomy of how young people can see themselves, see their futures. You know, I think oftentimes young people look at their certain circumstances, their situations, and they say, This is all I am, or this is all this is, this is all this is going to be. I think for you guys as youth leaders coming up, we're gonna be able to give you guys the resources to help win your community and make a huge difference in a way that most people never thought could have happened.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

And that's what I'm probably most excited about is seeing how God uses you guys through his word and through this movement into your community, into your school. Because I know it's real, I know that there's peer pressure, I know that between drugs and alcohol and everything else that's happening in our schools, like these are big things happening. And we can't be naive and just sit back and play patty cake and wonder why our generation isn't changing. Yeah, we have to create that movement, and so my hope is that what does happen here is life-changing and life-giving.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

And I really do think that's gonna I think when we get the right people, like the kids that really don't think there's anything else. Like if we get them in here, it really will impact the community. And I think you get those people that maybe have vaped in the past and you get them in here, and they're like, Oh, I can change. Okay, and I think it's gonna inspire some of the other kids that are the same path. I really can't change.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Everything changes when you meet Jesus, yeah, for sure. And I think when we look at young people, oftentimes, you know, I've said it a million times. No one grows up saying, Oh, I want to be a drug addict. No one grows up saying, Oh, I want to go to state penitentiary. No one grows up and says, I want to be a loser. No one does that. But oftentimes, their environment creates these obstacles for them, which leads them down bad paths. Here at Grace Youth, we're creating a new avenue to lead young people to Christ. And through young leadership and through a church movement, I believe that we're going to see a story of radically changed over the next five years. Yeah, and this is going to be a place where young people want to be. Let me ask you this. We just did summer nights, the first one. You did the devotion. Were you nervous?

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Oh, for sure. Like very yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

There were like 31 kids there.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

That's pretty awesome. I wasn't there, I was in Florida, obviously, but I heard so much good news about it. Um, what was like your favorite moment?

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Probably jumping like off of the like thing with my friends.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, they had like right the heights have like a huge like dock for like levels. It's like a double decker dock, right? Yeah, yeah, it's huge. It's pretty cool. Um, it did my heart good to see young people out there. Yeah. My hope is that you guys, as we go, I think we have we had to cancel uh one of our summer nights, but the next few that we do have, my hope is that like as we gradually go, that young people will just be getting more excited about the kickoff coming in August, um, which is gonna be a big night. So, Charlie, let me ask you, what do you think is the most difficult challenge that you have as a teenager in 2026? Um, going to church, being in church. Look, it's so easy for us to sit here and highlight, you know, young people that are vaping and they're doing all the things, but let's not sit here and pretend that it's easy being a young person or even an adult in 2026. We're going to church, we're in a good community, we're doing the best we can. But the truth is, all of our righteousness is as filthy rags. We're all sinners in need of Jesus. There's no difference between the man that drowns in 500 feet of water or five feet of water. We both drown. So we didn't come on this podcast to make young people or anyone feel less than because I'm not greater than anyone, and neither are you. And so, with transparency there, the reason we highlight that is because we want young people to know that there is a better way, there is a better path, there is a better future. But what do you feel like for yourself right now? Like, what's the hardest thing about being a young person, but also trying to live out your Christian faith?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

I think the hardest thing and honestly some days it's the motivation because it's like oh I have so much to do, like I just want to lay in bed all day.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Sometimes it's just getting out of bed and going to church. So that's just that's something I struggle with. Which I've gotten a lot better about because some people don't know. I was baptized as a baby and then last year I decided to get re-baptized because I just felt like I wanted to have like to it to be my choice. Right. And that really changed my perspective a lot. Like I got my Bible a lot more. And honestly, I think that's something that we struggle with a lot, is just putting it off, putting it off, putting it off, trying to get like, oh, I'll read it, I'll read my Bible later when you should just do it now. Yeah. Just do it now. And I think that's a big thing is like be able to just keep putting it off. And I think that's honestly my biggest struggle.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yeah. So procrastination. Yeah. Let me ask you this. Do you guys ever have like you ever heard of FOMO? Fear of missing out?

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah, I have the fear of missing out.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Do you you do you guys ever have that? Like, I don't know. You said that like it's sometimes hard for you to get out of bed. Like, sometimes I get anxiety if I don't get out of bed because I feel like I'm gonna miss something. Have you ever felt that way at all? Or no?

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Um, yeah, yes and no. I have like struggle with like anxiety. I struggle with it a lot.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

And I get so down on myself, it's just like, well, if I don't get out of bed, I'm not gonna like miss anything.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Like, oh, like not mess up anything?

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Or it's like I'm not gonna screw up anything.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Oh, I gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

So that's like my I see what you're saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

So your idea is kind of like, hey, look, if I stay in bed, there's not a chance that I mess up something.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Do you think a lot of young people struggle with that?

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Yeah, I would say so.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah. I I think anxiety, even depression.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Statistics are pretty high in this generation. How do you feel with your generation on screen time? Is that uh Oh, it's bad.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Like it's like outrageous. I average like five hours.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Really? It's bad. What what on? Just scrolling?

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, what?

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Um, mainly for me, it's Instagram and TikTok. But like something that I've changed a lot is I follow a lot of like just Christian music artists and like people that do like I follow good, good girls. Like they're golfers and they play like with Jesus, like they talk about that a lot. And I love that because it's like you're playing a sport, but you're applying your faith into it, and I love that uh because it applies to my life a lot, and I I love watching that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

You know, one of the reasons I think youth ministry matters is because I think it's important on young people having a actual relationship with uh leaders and a pastor and things of that nature. Would you argue that a lot of people, especially young people, could be more heavily influenced by social media and podcasters than they are with people that are actually in their personal relationships.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

I don't know. I think it's with social media, there's so many people out there you can almost like just find a person that you really relate to, like very similar, and I think that that helps a lot because I feel like even like someone that you have a personal relationship with, you're like, Yeah, I get what you're saying, but like you're also just close to me, and so you're just like you don't take it as serious.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Sure, sure. Which is kind of like leading to my point of the idea and fact that it worries me that so much influence is coming from people that we don't really know. Yeah, you know what I mean, and so we're taking things that they say as gospel, and some things are really good. I'm not bashing, I mean, we're doing a podcast, yeah. I'm not bashing podcasts, I'm not bashing influencers. I'm just wondering when we're going to start adding substance um through personal relationships. Yeah, I think that's so important because I what I see is we're the most connected generation, but we're the loneliest generation. And it's mainly because we think that our lives are lived through a screen and we miss the most important interactions, and that's with people that are around us.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

I say that because, for example, I'm not throwing you under the bus, I'm just asking questions.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Um when was the last time you read a book that wasn't the Bible?

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

What was it?

SPEAKER_00 20:42

It's like a I don't even remember. It's like a romance book.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Oh gotcha. I'm really into that kind of thing. No, it's I love romance books. That's cool. Would you say a lot of people your age read books?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Um no, probably not.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Probably not. And my thing is when it comes to leadership, like I think sometimes we don't respect the idea of what like good books are.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

So what I mean by that is uh I'm reading a book right now called What's a Life by Jim Collins. He took 12 years of his life from 55 to 67 now to research for this book that he wrote. 12 years, 12 years of the most intensive research that he could possibly do, and only to provide substance for a reader. So you're telling me I can get 12 years of this man's knowledge, dedication, and everything else that he found to apply to my life in a span of a week, maybe 300 pages. And for some reason, I don't understand why that's not appealing to people. Because you can watch a movie and the dopamine, I get it, it hits. But the substance of it isn't as good as that of a book. You know what I'm saying? But oftentimes we read a book and we're like, oh, it's just a book. Well, no, it's someone's life. They've you got to value that person. And I guess what I'm saying is, I took a long trick around to get here. Is oftentimes I feel like social media, we're just scrolling and we're listening to something for 20 seconds. And if it's, you know, past 30 seconds, we're out, like we're going. Whereas personal relationship and influence, we don't value people enough to actually stop and listen and have conversation or say, Hey, will you have lunch with me? Hey, will like we're too inconvenienced by personal relationships now. It's like when somebody asks you if you want to come over for something, you're like, oh dude, no. Like, and maybe that's just being an adult. You hope they cancel.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Oh, yeah. I feel that way sometimes. Does that happen? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah. And that's sad that you feel that way at such a young age. But I think this is another reason why youth ministry matters. Because personal relationships with your peers matters. You said you had 25 people in your class.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

How many of those people do you actually hang out with?

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Four.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yeah, it's pretty normal, I would say. I'd say that's pretty normal. How many people do you think will end up coming to youth ministry here on a Sunday night?

SPEAKER_00 23:23

I've got three of them coming.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Three of them?

unknown 23:27

How many?

SPEAKER_00 23:28

But they've also gone to church before in the past.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Yeah. How many young people like in general? Like we had 31 at summer nights. How many young people do you think will show up on Sunday nights here?

SPEAKER_00 23:39

There's definitely gonna be more than that.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Yeah. But do you think that's because they're hungry for something more?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

I think Yeah, and they're it's a new opportunity. So new is like something very exciting around here.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

I gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Because it's been the same forever. Yeah, sure. And it's like, oh, this is a new opportunity. I'm not used to this. I'm gonna go check this out.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

I think it's important to know that like newness fades.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

But when they encounter a relationship with Jesus, like first it's the lights, it's the gift cards, it's all the stuff we do, the smoke, the vibes. Is that what they say? The vibes. Yeah. Um, the vibe is the Holy Spirit. Okay, that's what the vibe is. Um the Holy Spirit, they might come for that because it's new, but the reality is they're going to leave with something much more significant.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

And that's the that's the Lord working in their lives. But I'm excited for that. Like that's why we're doing it. We want young people to be excited about the newness. We want them to be excited about what God's doing. Um, real quick, I want you to tell us three things that most people may not know about you.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

I have a lot of dogs.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Do you? Yeah. How many?

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Well, we just got a puppy.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Like real dogs, not stuffed dogs. Yeah, like real dogs. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

They're all hunting dogs except for one because hunting is like big for me.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Yeah? What do you hunt?

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Um, with a dog, we do rabbits. Hunt rabbits. Okay. Rabbits are fast. Yeah. Dogs are fast too. Yeah. If they're not too fast.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

And then deer, raccoons, squirrel, doves.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Basically it all.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

You ever been duck hunting?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

No, I want to.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yeah, I want to go duck hunting too. I'm not I've never been duck hunting, but I've sh I've shot skeet with uh some of these guys, and I feel like I might be okay at it. Yeah. At least uh the full choke I have on a gun. I'll be pretty good at it. So um, no, that's awesome. So what else? Give us two other things. You have a lot of dogs. Yeah. What else?

SPEAKER_00 26:02

I'm I think people kind of know this. I'm very, very, very close with my family. Like, if I had to pick, like if I'm gonna go hang out with my family, I'm gonna hang out with my friends, probably gonna pick family.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Like Jonah and Jackson.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

I love that. I love that. What else we got? Last thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Pretty boring.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

No, no, no, no. Tell us something embarrassing or like something like embarrassing. Like tell us like an embarrassing story about you, or give us something that's off the wall, like this like interesting uh fact about you that many people don't know. For example, I can juggle, you know, that's kind of weird, but I can juggle. So no, but for you, like what's something? You have dogs, you choose your family. I love both of those. Give me one more.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Oh, I'm very clumsy, and there was this one time we were loading up the boat after getting off the lake, and I was like try I was like bending over like the front of the boat, like trying to crank it up, like after you hook it up, and I flipped over. Like I flipped over off the boat, like onto the asphalt. It was bad.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

That that is bad.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

I can't say I can say that it's happened more than once.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Did you get in trouble for that?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

No, I just got laughed at.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Real quick, tell us your story. Um how did you come to know Jesus?

SPEAKER_00 27:21

So I have grown up in the church, this church, and there was some things that happened in my life that kind of like we quit coming. And then we had a really, really close family member. She wasn't family, but like passed away, and I was like I I need something. Like I need to read And so I came to church again, and it was it was hard, it was really hard for me. And then another thing was is my parents separated and then a couple years later finally got like a divorce.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

And that was really, really hard for me. And I wasn't coming to like church necessarily, but like I got my Bible more and I prayed a lot. And I've got I've gotten better out of it. It's been a little while now, and I come to church pretty regular to do youth group stuff with that.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

I love that. And so is that kind of what led you down your path to accepting Christ? Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. You know, you've got a wonderful family. I love your mom to death. She is a true blessing to this church, and um, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of what God's doing in you and through you. Um Thank you for being the leader that you are. Thank you for doing what you're doing. And uh I'm excited. I'm excited for the youth ministry. I'm excited for your life. I'm excited to see how God uses you in your junior year. So thanks for thanks for doing this podcast. Yeah, of course. And uh thank you for being one of the leaders going to do the podcast. Uh, for you that don't know, uh Charlie will be one of the main uh leaders for the Grace Youth Podcast. So you'll be hearing from her a lot in the future, less from me. Some of you are like, amen. So hey guys, thanks for checking out the Grace Youth Podcast. We'll see you soon. Take care. Hey guys, thanks for listening to the Grace Youth Podcast. Before you go, I do want to pray for you. I don't know where you're at right now. I don't know what season of life you find yourself in. But can I tell you that here at Grace Bible Church in Astoria, Illinois, we are for you. So I want to pray over you because I believe God is doing it with right now, even when you can't see it. And I know it may sound cliche, but I really believe it. Dear Father, I thank you for your goodness. I thank you for your mercy. I thank you for the ears that are listening right now. Lord God, you know them by name. You know their heart, you know their story. Lord, you know the ending. You're the author of this. So, Father, we just love you. God, I pray that you would protect us, you would keep us, Lord, allow us to continue to do mission for you. Lord, we love you and we praise you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, thanks for listening again. We'll see you soon.