One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. - Psalm 145:4
As a church family, our mission is to multiply disciples and churches. Every week we gather on Sundays and scatter throughout the week into discipleship equipping communities. One of these communities is Citylight Students. Citylight Students (CLS) exists to disciple students in Knowing Jesus, Growing in Him, and Going out to share the Good News. CLS provides a space for the church to come serve and to be served. It is a joy and responsibility for the church body to come alongside one another, including the students and families within this ministry, with truth, encouragement and praise for the Lord.
One of the many faithful CLS servants are the Bristol’s. They have served middle schoolers and parents for over 35 years in various contexts. In the beginning, they did it to be faithful to the calling God had given to them and for middle schoolers. They have now realized, that God, in and through this amazing ministry, had given them much more than they ever gave. They had been the recipients of God’s love and joy.
“We like middle schoolers,” Mark and Diane Bristol replied to the question “Why middle school ministry?” “Diane and I like being around them. We always get pulled back into this ministry. This is where we feel we are gifted, and we have so much fun! We see middle schoolers as an unreached people group. When you change churches, you look at the high schooler, the little kids, the college kids. Most people forget about the middle schooler. I think nobody can figure them out, so you leave them in a holding pattern. Or we tend to make them fit in. We have found middle schoolers just want to know if anybody loves them. We love them and being with them. You don’t have to be cool. We want them to not only help them survive but thrive in middle school. We want them to know that it’s about God and God is helping them through this, and we are helping them through this.”
One unexpected gift while serving middle schoolers has been everyone on the ministry’s serving team. For the Bristol’s, it’s become an extended family.
“We love serving with others,” Diane described, “and there’s a great community with the leaders and volunteers in student ministry. It’s a nuclear family. They are now some of our closest friends. When people serve the church, we see the gifts. You can see God working in them. It’s become a great way to see how God works.”
Over 35 years of serving, the Bristol’s extended family has also included the thousands of students they have loved. One student from their early serving days was Chad Swanson. Chad was a middle schooler, or back then, a junior higher. Junior high was a challenging time for Chad and at the same time, he knew he was wanted and seen.
“Middle school can be a miserable memory for most people,” Chad shared. “It can be a time where you feel unaccepted and unknown. My memories from junior high, because of leaders like the Bristol’s, were good. Volunteers who were there every week and committed to you and your group made it a place where you could go and you knew you were going to be wanted, seen and accepted. On top of that it’s a place where you had fun and built relationships with like-minded students. You are also getting breadcrumbs of Christ thrown in everywhere. It’s a time where I look back and think of good times and of friends I have had all the way to adulthood.”
This year, Chad’s son Archer moved up from Citylight Kids to Citylight West’s student ministry. Knowing what he experienced in middle school and a conviction to serve, Chad stepped into volunteering with the student ministry, specifically the middle schoolers. At this fall’s kick off, as Archer and Chad walked into the building, something profound happened. God presented both the Bristol’s and Chad something beautiful. A sign of his faithfulness and love ... Three generations loving and serving the Lord.
“It’s not about numbers but planting seeds,” Mark and Diane confessed after realizing Chad and Archer were both in student ministry with them. “God showed us what we did mattered. We don’t see the fruit often. It’s neat to see how a youth group fosters the next generation of believers. To go down generation to generation. Something the kids can hold onto. It’s encouraging.”
For Chad, he was confronted with God’s unwavering faithfulness.
“He has promised to be faithful to complete the work he began in us. I look at my life, and through the work of the Bristol’s, I’ve realized God is not done with me, nor with the Bristol’s. He is leading me with my kids, and with other kids. People are trusting you to be faithful and diligent with their kids. It’s the overarching story of Jesus. He is faithful, constant and never changing. Always the same and always reliable.”
If you are a parent, grandparent, young adult, young or old, there is always a need to be reminded of what matters ... Jesus. The verse in Psalms states that we should all “declare your mighty acts” and there is no better way in doing so but serving the church and coming alongside the next generation. Praising God together!
“We want our kids to have a grounding foundation and identity in Christ,” Chad concluded. “It is the only thing that will be constant through their life. Their jobs will change, their relationships will change, their location, age, physical ability, everything in life will change. Their transition into junior high is so important. It’s the time we can get kids to understand who they are in Christ. Helping them in junior high will help them to step out into the world with a solid faithful foundation. Our kids are our harvest, lives that have seeds planted, and there is so much more to do. We can’t stop. If we stop, all those seeds and growth can die. I challenge parents to be one. I know there is so much required of us. But there is so much more we are capable of doing and so much more that is needed to be done. The more that we step into it, the more the burden is light. It’s daunting from the outside, but the more who step in and shoulder the burden for the gospel to go forward, the easier it will be and the more work that can be done.”
If you are not serving and pouring your gifts and strengths into someone, you are invited to the student ministry team at either location on Wednesday nights. Mark and Diane concluded with this invitation to the church:
“The students won’t remember the lessons, but they will remember the relationships. That’s why it’s so important to have other leaders in there building the relationships. You are missing out on a lot of joy that God can give you if you don’t use the gifts he has given you. It produces a tremendous amount of joy if you use the gifts in a way that they are tended.”
Join Mark and Diane, Chad and Archer, and the whole student ministry team on Wednesday nights. >> citylightomaha.org/students
Mark and Diane have left a legacy. I, like Chad, were one of the recipients of their kindness and inclusion in middle school. Seeing their dedication to students has lasted with me and has motivated to serve in the middle school ministry at my church. I’m thankful for them and all the others that have gone before being the hands and feet of Jesus to a bunch of kids trying to figure out who God is and how many twizzlers they can eat before getting sick.