See ya at the Pole... this is wonderful...

Now I have heard about the Youth Christian movement, and one of the things they do across the country, called See ya at the Pole (SYATP). This is a day when Christian teens in junior high and high schools meet at the flag pole in the front of their school before school begins for a time of worship, prayer, and meditation. When I lived in Bismarck I had a friend who is a youth pastor, and I remember him talking about going to the high schools to be with the youth as they did this. However, I have never seen it myself. Well, yesterday was SYATP day. As I was driving by my church, I saw a huge crowd at the flag pole in front. See, we are temporarily housing a private Christian school at my church for the next couple of years until the school gets their building completed. So of course, this doesn't surprise me that a Christian school would be involved in SYATP. But it made me curious about the other schools in town. It just so happens that one of the two main high schools in town is on my way to my office, so I made sure to drive by on the way. The front of this school is the "hang out" spot before school, where all cliques, groups, racial and ethnic conglomerations, and so on, congregate before the first bell. The flag pole s dead in the center of this mass of adolescent flesh and hormonology (LOL), so I was curious to see how faithful the Christian teens would be to SYATP in this environment. As I drove by, in the midst of all this stuff, I saw three separate rings of teens holding hands deep in prayer...focused on their internal worship and oblivious to the groups around them. It was wonderful to see about 50 teenagers in a public school unabashedly and unashamed in their faith, and boldly expressing that faith literally in the midst of their secular world.

I wish I had pictures of it. It was a powerful image.

To all you Christian teenagers out there, others are seeing what you are doing, and lives can be changed as a result. Rock on.