Howdy!  I am sitting here in San Antonio, Texas this morning.  Kurt and I are attending Conclave, a conference for pastors serving children, students, and families.  I am super excited to share what we learned and discussed here in San Antonio, but that isn’t the reason I am writing today.  Instead, I wanted to celebrate when former students become friends.  You see, I spent two summers during my time at UMHB interning at Cibolo Creek Community Church in Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas.  Fair Oaks Ranch is right outside of Boerne, TX and about 30 minutes outside of San Antonio.

One of the reasons I was excited to come down to Conclave was the opportunity to reconnect with several of my former students who I served at Cibolo Creek, all of whom have become adults and even finished college.  So, after our evening session last night, I jumped in the car with James and Andrew, two of the students, and drove out to Boerne for dinner.  Wyatt, who’s family I was close with while I interned, hosted us at his future home.  His fiancé is already living there, her and Wyatt cooked us dinner.  We ate dinner, shared laughs, reminisced, and updated each other on what our lives looked like currently.  It was a very sweet time.  On my ride home I found myself feeling extremely grateful.  Not only for the time spent and good food, but for these former students who had become friends.

Perhaps former students becoming friends isn’t unique to youth ministry, but it is one of my favorite parts of the job.  In what other field do you get to serve an individual through anything that life may throw at them, and then ultimately get to do life with that individual?  Now that I think about it, one of my best friends in the world was MY YOUTH PASTOR.  These relationships have become very fruitful, and I am very thankful for each of them. It’s great when former students become friends.

So, what is the point of all this?  To tell you the truth, I am just excited about it!  The prospect of forging lifelong friendships with my guys at FBCA gets me amped.  They bring so much to the table, and I cannot wait to see how they live into the people that God is calling them to be.  I haven’t been here long, but I can already see these relationships forming and know that God has some cool things in store for the guy’s ministry here at FBCA.

Tanner

P.S. If you haven’t yet gotten plugged into the guy’s ministry here at FBCA, always feel free to reach out!  My email is tanner.watson@fbca.org.