Pastor Mark

As mentioned in the previous post, we just finished celebrating our high school youth pastor, Mark, for 20 years at church. I know that so many people who went through youth group have the same things to say, or even more than I do, about how Pastor Mark changed their lives. But while we remembered all of our glory days in high school youth group, I think everyone was giving due credit to Mark, who made a place for us to become who we were, to grow spiritually, and who invested so much into our lives. You have to know the guy to really know how great he is, how he can look at situations differently than anyone else, how he teaches by example and by using your own life, how he speaks truth without judgment.
My husband and I both hold great respect for Pastor Mark, who, in different ways, influenced us and changed our lives. He was part of a healing process for me, and for my husband, he was a friend through a really dark time.
I could never share every memory I have that Mark was responsible for, directly or indirectly. But because I've been thinking about it this weekend, I will share some of my favorites. In no particular order.

1) Driving home from Chicago on the bus, in a construction zone. Mark, deciding to see how close he could get before hitting the cones. (Many of them did not survive).
2) Mexico. 1998. Sand, sun, building houses. I was 16, and I did not sleep more than 3 hours a night the whole week. On the way home Mark told me he would never let me get that little sleep ever again. But he was the only person I ever saw fall asleep while STANDING.
3) Worship time. Our youth group was really into music. By my senior year, we had formed bands that would lead the music time every week. That year, before school started, Mark invited me to discuss how I thought the worship time should look. I remember, we sat in his office eating salsa out of cups (he didn't have any chips), and he listened to me. And I think that was the first time I really felt like an adult valued my opinion. Also, the salsa was really tasty.
4) When I was still really new to the church, they were doing a banquet for the graduating seniors, and I didn't really feel like I was part of the group so I planned to just sit out in my brother's car the whole time. Mark noticed, and sent my brother out to get me to come in. He also invited me to go on their work trip that was coming up. I didn't go, but it just meant a lot to me that he noticed. There were at least fifty other kids in the group, and he had all kinds of other responsibilities, but he noticed me when I was in the loneliest, darkest time of my life. And it made me know, in some small way, that God had not forgotten about me.
5) We were at a youth conference and by the middle of the week, I'd hit my limit of social interaction. I was hauling around a big burden of unforgiveness and confusion from the church my family had left almost two years earlier, and I just wanted to spend the large group session crying. Actually, I did. I went out and sat on the sidewalk alone and cried. When I composed myself, I went back in but I couldn't get to my seat so I stood in the aisle by Mark. He turned to me while everyone else was busy singing, and asked if I wanted to talk. We went into a stair well/landing thing away from the crowd and I cried more and he hugged me and then I told him about how badly I wanted to forgive and how I didn't know how I could. Then we sat on the stairs and he told me his own forgiveness story from his life. And somewhere in the whole exchange, after he prayed for me and gave his advice, something inside of me healed a little. The conference went on and people had their own personal experiences with God, but for me, that day in the stair well was life-changing because it was a huge bend in the road to forgiveness. I don't even know what Mark said exactly. I just remember that he understood and he listened, and no one else had been able to really do that for that particular subject.
6) My wedding. When Daniel and I got engaged, there was no question who we wanted to perform the cerimony for us. We'd met because of Mark (another long story). We'd basically fallen in love in youth group. ANd Mark meant so much to both of us at that time. We were the first couple he married, which I think was pretty cool (he's done a ton of weddings since then). He and his wife mentored us through our premarital counseling, and then he did the most awesome thing a pastor could ever do at a wedding. In his charge to the couple, he made each point an acrostic that spelled Batman. Because he's cool like that.

Annd there are probably a thousand more stories I could tell, but I guess most of them just aren't as interesting to everyone else as they are to me. So I'l leave it at that. And I'll say the cliche, how privilidged I am to know Mark.

This song was in my head this weekend as we reflected on all that he's done in 20 years. It's Cheer Up Church by Charlie Peacock, and some of the words don't really apply (especially the past tense part) but here are the ones that do:

His was a voice, fueld by truth
spoke to us/ of God's love
In a way/ we could understand
and take hold of.
His was a life/ defined by grace
for a time/and for a reason
so we bow/and give thanks to God
for the life/of our brother