A week ago today I got the call no youth pastor wants to take…a girl in my high school group took her life.  

The call came in from my boss, our children’s director as I was cleaning up after our middle school program.  He called twice and I could tell this was not good news.  The call changed the following four days as nearly everything was cleared off my schedule and appropriately we shifted into “crisis-mode.”  The news became increasingly stressful as I learned the funeral would be taking place on Saturday which also was my moving day.  Thankfully I had an amazing group of guys on both ends who were flexible and made the move come off without any hitch.

It was tough being so new to the church when this tragedy hit…as I felt I hadn’t earned the place in these students lives to appropriately pastor them through it.   But God wasn’t limited by that and did an amazing job pastoring the students through some incredible volunteers, staff members and fellow students.  I was so impressed to watch how swiftly our church moved in to care for this hurting family and provided support for devastated students.

While no one wishes tragedy on anybody…I do wish you are part of a caring church when it does come.