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| Phil With the Girls Ensemble |
It was the kind of conversation every single person hates - the "when are you getting married?" conversation. I was 17 in a new youth group with a single youth pastor who was fun and easy to get along with. All the girls were grilling him and most of them likely for selfish reasons. "When are you getting married..." *whispering* "to me?"
Our family changed churches between my junior and senior year of high school. From a church we dearly loved, but that had drastically changed and could no longer hide its dysfunctions, and a church school that had no teachers who could help me with upper classman subjects to another church with a school that would allow me to graduate in the same curriculum under teachers who knew what they were doing.
[And if that sounds snarky, it's not. It's just the truth. It was the best drastic change of my life, and I'll always be grateful for it.]
I came from a youth group where the youth pastor was decent, but his wife was appropriately referred to as "Ms. Hell". (Her name was Helen, so it was a convenient abbreviation.) So, when grilling our single youth pastor, my plea was simply that I'd never had a good youth pastor's wife and I came to this new church and still didn't have a good youth pastor's wife.
In a frustrated yet polite response with a touch of exasperation in his voice, Phil looked at me and said, "Will YOU marry me, Lisa?" and I said "NO! cause then I still wouldn't have a good youth pastor's wife, I'd be a good youth pastor's wife." And with that the bell rang, and we all went back to class.
As much as that brutally awkward conversation still makes me laugh, I've regretted for 40 some years. I'm single and often I reap what was sown there.
Phil did eventually marry a good youth pastor's wife, and while Wendi was never my youth pastor's wife as a student, I was able to serve alongside them after returning from college. I look on those days with fondness. Those long weekends taking teenagers to Dawson McAlister youth conferences were where I first tasted of the deep well of authentic worship - something that forever changed the trajectory of my life. Those days set me on a path from song-singer to worshiper and I can't express what that's meant to me in the decades since. We took that music home with us, and on Sunday nights we'd put down our hymn books and Phil would stand beside the pulpit and lead us in those songs.
From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same,
the name of the Lord is to be praised.
From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same,
the name of the Lord is to be praised.
So praise ye the Lord.
Praise ye the Lord.
From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same,
the name of the Lord is to be praised.
Phil decided to go Home to Jesus last week. I picture him today next to the Throne of Jesus just like he was next to that pulpit worshipping the God he loved and served his whole life. What a remarkable man, faithful friend, the only good youth pastor I ever had - the only one it took to forever change my life.
And if I've ever ended a meeting or rehearsal with the remark, "Any questions, comments or snide remarks?" You can thank Phil for that too. May his memory be a blessing.
