by David Melton
This is a season of feasting. To hear New Englanders tell it, we virtually invented turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. Who doesn’t love Thanksgiving — the meal and the event? But I will leave the bird and trimmings for you and yours, and talk instead about … a burger.
I took a handful of Boston students out for a burger the other day. It was a long weekend and they were around. Besides, there is never a bad time for a burger. Anyway, here is something to be thankful for from a fast food restaurant.
I’m thankful for our young people. From just one very random sampling there is much to be thankful for, and impressed by.
It might surprise you that our Boston students come from all over. My lunch table gang predictably came from Massachusetts and Maine, but there was also a slice of Texas, Kansas, Virginia, Michigan, and Kentucky. That’s pretty important for you to remember about us. Boston is a great place to be “from” but it is also a great place to come to. Transcendentalists called Boston “the hub of the universe” and this city does, in fact, draw great young minds from the ends of the earth. That’s just one more reason why our Fellowship is blessed to be on the ground here. From outside our Fellowship and from within, they keep coming to Boston.
But my takeaway from lunch was about far more than just where our students come from. Let me tell you about what they are doing now while they are studying. Of the seven Boston students with me, three are involved in the weekly music leadership at their local church. Two more are youth leaders. Four more teach in Children’s ministry every Sunday. Six of them are active in other ministries at church. Okay … I’m not a math guy but I can add enough to see that is way more than seven total. These students are not just finding a place to serve while studying at Boston Baptist College … they are finding many places to serve! I am thankful for their whatever-needs-to-be-done mentality.
Let me finish up this burger talk with a look forward. A ministry college like ours is not a reservoir — we are merely a channel. Our sole purpose is to partner with our churches to help move along our finest young people toward future leadership in our churches. I don’t know, of course, where my seven lunch partners will end up serving the Lord, but two of them talk much about foreign missions. Those teaching children and teens are only going to get better and better in those ministries. And I won’t overlook this … there were future godly moms and dads at the table. I drifted away from the happy banter momentarily to soak it in. Wendy’s had become something quite holy, and for me, a kind of Thanksgiving feast.
I am thankful for my blessings. I’m thankful for the yummy turkey. I’m thankful for burgers. And I’m thankful for the future leaders of our churches, sitting sometimes these days, in booths at a burger joint.