A group of folk in our church has been charged with finding the next person to be the Minister to Students at FBC. To say that they have taken their work seriously would not be to give them enough credit. They have done dozens of reference checks, fifteen phone interviews, eight face-to-face interviews with prospective ministers...and they ahve prayed a lot...asking for God's guidance. They are looking for that right person who will be a 'good fit' at FBC and with our youth. Tonight they meet once again to see if they can come to decision about whom to invite to join our staff. That decision has been made difficult because of the quality of the young people they have met...which brings to what I really want to say. Each of the candidates will graduate from seminary/divinity school this year or next. They are uniformly bright and articulate. Each of them will serve some church very well. That is exceedingly good news.

Much has been written and said about this generation of students not wanting to serve in the local church. But that simply is not true with the folk we have met over the last five months. They are passionate about the church...about young people and most especially about their own faith. Our committee will only call one of them, but all that means is that seven other congregations will ultimately be blessed with a fine minister one day soon. They are each praying for our committee and the committee is praying for each of them. Because their futures are bright, the future of the church is bright, also.