On two occasions this week, I received vivid reminders that people are always listening — regardless of age, education, or even apparent interest level.
First, I had lengthy phone conversation with a young man who literally grew up in Good Shepherd and is now a freshman in college. Throughout the call, he made references to different sermon series that I preached as much as eight years ago. And then as we were winding down, he said, “Oh yeah, I remember that time you said people don’t have drinking problems, they have drinking solutions.” That, of course, was the first message in the Solutionists series (to be released in May by Abingdon Press as Solve: Finding God’s Solutions In A World Of Problems). So at the time of that sermon’s delivering, the young man was near the end of his senior year in high school, a time when he should have been much distracted and barely paying attention in church and instead remembers a line from a message about Nehemiah verbatim.
Someone is ALWAYS listening.
Then this email greeted me first thing on Tuesday morning:
[My son] 9, wanted to sit with me in big church on Sunday because he had heard about the Jaw Droppers promo from his brothers the previous week. He was very attentive through the service but I wasn’t sure how much he really got out of it. We picked up [my older sons] from the church retreat Sunday evening and they were discussing the prayer chapel and various Bible verses they had discussed and learned-including the Bible story and Devin’s teaching of the Gospel.
[Nine year old] piped up and said- did you know that Jesus turned into a light saber? It was bright white because it shined from the inside out and he had no sins. If it happened to anyone else it wouldn’t have been white- it would have had dark spots in it because we have all sinned and Jesus didn’t. And the video was hilarious esp the Minion at the end.
Again, an exact recitation of what I said. From a nine year old! And you know that during the sermon itself, he was doodling or drawing or otherwise looking distracted — exactly like a nine year old should. And yet in the middle of that pre-adolescent activity, he was dialed into words that he is just beginning to understand.
Someone is ALWAYS listening.