I began attending E.F.C.C.A. in 2018… or 2019. I’m not sure. Not being lazy, I actually wasted some time trying to work it out, but I’m just bad with numbers. You know I came when my dad came here: go ahead, look it up! Of course, I could have asked him, but he’s too busy pastoring for such trifles.
I agreed to be brought to this church to help babysit the high-schoolers, and I suppose I shall stay here as long as I feel useful in that ministry. Sometimes it feels like a thankless task, with children on one side and grown-ups on the other supplying ungrateful complaints on how the youth congregation could be better run. ‘Keep them off their phones!’ say some, or ‘Don’t be so strict!’ while others seem to see church as a business or social club rather than a place to serve God. I feel for the young people, as since my arrival the group has gone through changes of leadership and organization on an average of at least once a year. My hope is that now we have a great, caring youth pastor, stable routines and consistent expectations can be set for the congregation to grow spiritually on firm ground.
The most rewarding aspect of serving at E.F.C.C.A. has been to see virtually delinquent children mature into young people who, of their own free will, begin to show the fruits of self-discipline, faith, and humility. It gives a modest degree of satisfaction to attend a youth service and hear the Creed being said in its uncut form, and the Doxology sung, with words which one helped to bring back. Having often felt fed up and ready to give up against the growing flood of poor manners, sloppy errors, self-indulgence, and general disrespect for God’s house, I have to remember that I’m not obligated to keep anyone happy: if I need to bully the kids into becoming less obnoxious and more Christian, then by God’s truth, I must.
The most undeniable grace I’ve experienced at this church has been to meet my lovely wife here. Our Lord has also blessed us with a beautiful daughter and son, whom we have had baptized as infants in accordance with the teaching of the early Church and Jesus’ command to ‘suffer the little children’ to come to him. Seeing my children, and my wife who is far more devoted and caring than I am, I’m reminded that I can never do enough to serve God in them: whatever my stumbling efforts to be a better husband and father, I remain an unprofitable servant (Luke 17.10).
