"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:3-6 NIV)
This past Wednesday night was great! Robin and I attended the True Love Waits Event, sponsored by WAYNET (Wilson Area Youth Network), at Fike High School. Our own Auston Jones, senior at Fike, was instrumental in leading WAYNET to sponsor this event and led this event as his senior project.
WAYNET was started a little over ten years ago by the youth pastors of Wilson County to work together on community events. They work together on the annual "See You At the Pole" event in September that challenges believing students to pray together around their school's flag pole. They also put together two annual countywide evangelistic events to reach our students. I had the privilege of being one of the pastors who brought the first countywide event together that inspired the formation of WAYNET. Myself (I led the WCC youth in those days) and David Barnes (another former local youth pastor) put together a week long series of meetings at local churches that culminated in an event at the Wilson Recreation Center featuring Christian Illusionist, Andre Kole. The youth pastors were so excited about the joy of partnering together that they later formed WAYNET.
So, although I'm no longer working directly with the youth, I'm still very proud of WAYNET and I still love seeing what our students can do when they get inspired. When God gets hold of young people, they always blow away our expectations.
This event certainly blew away my expectations! According to Jeff Smith, WAYNET coordinator, there were about 350 people present in the Fike auditorium. Of those, 258 comment cards were turned in at the end of the event. Students from Wilson as well as Nash, Edgecombe, Pitt, Greene, Wayne, and Johnston counties were in attendance. One of our partner churches, Discovery Church in Greenville, brought 26 to the event. The cards indicated that there were 41 students who made decisions to accept Christ, 2 students who expressed a desire to rededicate their commitment, 103 students indicated their commitment to remain abstinent until marriage, and 66 students who renewed their commitment to wait until marriage.
Auston Jones did a fine job leading and acting as the emcee for this event. Stephen Combs and the WCC Youth Band (Chandler Bryant, Michael Strange, Michael Williams, Abbott Mitchell, and Jonathan Combs) led the worship, which was phenomenal. I wish you could have seen Mikey dancing while playing the bass. Many of our own members worked behind the scenes on media, sound, and other support roles (George Bryant, Eddie Gonzales, Dustin Wheeler, Jeff & Becky Jones, Undine Lamm, Kathi Bryant, and Jimmy & Christy Gurgone). Of course, I wouldn't want to leave Cody Jones out. He played an excellent groom in the skit (I hope the tomato juice came out). And finally, it was great to have Chris Shelton back in town as the main speaker for this event. 
I love to see how our church and how our youth are willing to work together in partnership to extend the gospel in our city. I'm truly thankful to God for the partnership He has given us.
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