At around 9:30 tonight the last of the students left the youth house, and my job at Faith Presbyterian Church as youth pastor came to an official end. It was an evening filled with fun. There was the game of Ultimate (a tradition of sorts), table tennis, Catch Phrase, an impromptu "Joe Beck Trivia" by Rory Brown, and the usual pictures, cards, hugs, and goodbyes that usually accompany a moment like this. At a couple of points I tried to express sentimentality only to fail miserably (I'm good at being vulnerable until it comes to my emotions), and everyone left smiling and satisfied.

After the last of the students left the building I laid on one of the couches and read the card that the students had signed. It reminded me of my high school yearbooks, which makes me happy in the sense that I felt like these students and I really had relationships. After going over a few of the messages again, I laid there looking up at the ceiling, saddened that, for me, this is the end of an era. In reality, these students will have a much longer lasting impact on me than I ever will on them. Whereas they'll all have other youth directors who will impart valuable things to them, they will forever be my first youth group that God placed under my watch care.

I look around the room and see the rows of chairs. I always set out about twice as many as we needed, half hoping that more students would miraculously show up, and half doing it to send a message to the students that we should be looking for more people to witness to. I see the big-screen tv that was always used for powerpoint, and observe all the items around the old house that I rarely ever cared for before. This large, hollowed out room holds so many memories for me.

There's all the different sermon series we went through. The series on JI Packer's Knowing God was the first time I felt like I really did something well. There's the conversations. Outside the kitchen is where Allen Porter came to the Lord. Inside there are all the conversations with the students, specifically the ones of trying to make Nathan laugh, or trying to make Natalie see God's beauty inside of herself, or trying to reel in "The Five," as they've always been in my mind, and to which Allen became a part, making it more than just "The Four."

Thinking of all the students that were there tonight makes me smile bittersweetly. There's memories with each one, jokes with each one, expectations, hopes, love, prayers. I know them much better than they realize, and, sadly, I feel as if I've gone the past two and a half years very guarded. I hope that they have intuition into me as I have had into them.

As I realize I've been daydreaming, I decide to hop up from the couch and get home to my wife, who is probably fast asleep by now. I shut out all the lights for the last time as youth director and leave the house behind, no longer employed by my first job in ministry. It was a good run, and I'm proud of much. Allen is outside waiting for a ride. It's stuff like that about this job that I love. I make a point to tell him that he means much to me, and we don't say much else. His mom shows up, and I tell her that if I don't see her again that it was nice to have met her. I feel sincerely about this, as she has allowed me an extensive amount of freedom in the life of her son. I then realize how much freedom I earned in the lives of all of these students, and how much trust was given and earned from their parents. I hope this means that I was doing something right.

To the youth group at Faith Presbyterian Church: You are to me a group of special, wonderful young men and women. I'm sorry I've been so hard on you and so intentionally distant. I think of you in the same way as I do my wife and daughter in this sense: it is impossible for me to know if you truly are wonderful and special or if you just seem that way to me, because I cannot separate my love for you all from my view of you. To me, you will always be special and I will always see Christ in you.