Emerge – A Beautiful Picture

Look at the picture below. Do you see how beautiful this image is?

No, I’m not talking about my incredible photo taking abilities on my phone. I’m also not talking about the pretty sky scenery or nice architecture. Look a little bit harder. See the church buses. They are South Main Street Baptist Church’s buses in North Side Baptist Church’s parking lot.

What does that mean? That means that two churches’ student ministries are partnering together to do something bigger than they could do on their own – Emerge. Emerge is a camp that began last night where these two youth groups or sleeping in gyms to wake up early in the morning and give back to the community. These teenagers will be all over town this week serving with children, doing construction, helping out the needy, and plenty more.

Why would teenagers spend one of their last weeks of the summer away from the lake and sleeping in? Because they understand the love of Jesus. And it’s time that they made that love tangible for people in Greenwood.

Fred and Russ are in charge of this week. I can’t say enough about the great job Fred is doing here at North Side, and I cannot tell you how much respect I have for Russ and his ministry. I think what’s great about these two is that they are ministering to two groups of students in the same town. Instead of competition, they see each other as brothers. Instead of trying to see whose youth group is bigger, they combined to see how many they could pull together to serve.

I’ll never forget a comment that Jeff heard one day when he met a church member’s friend who was a member of a sister church in the community. This man stated, “So, you are the competition’s pastor, eh?’

While Jeff tried to explain to him ecclesiology without shaking the man to death, I don’t know how much it worked. Jeff tried to explain that all churches who live with Jesus as Lord are on the same team. We don’t compete with each other, we’re in a battle against an enemy who causes people to say things like other churches are part of the competition.

I’m thankful for ministers like Fred and Russ this morning. They are showing that the God’s Kingdom is more important than any person’s kingdom. Keep building it together, boys.

Travis Agnew

Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.