A Wedding and A Funeral
A Wedding
In late August, I had the honor and privilege of officiating the wedding of one of our Kentwood Young Life leaders. Shoutout to Zach and Gracie! It was a beautiful wedding. Full of Jesus. It was a gift just to be there, let alone to play a small part in it. There were MANY things that made the wedding special, but one of my favorites was having five of our Young Life guys there.
During cocktail hour—or for me and the fellas, mocktail hour—I was asking them what they thought of everything. For some of them, this was their first wedding.
Without missing a beat, Aden said:
“Weddings are a lot better than funerals.”
This was immediately met with a bunch of “What the heck are you talking about?” and laughter from the other four guys and myself.
He was very serious. And, he wasn’t wrong. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized that weddings and funerals actually have a lot more in common than I initially thought.
Think about it. People gather together dressed nicely. There’s usually a pastor. A few people stand up front and talk. People cry. People laugh. People sing. People tell stories. People hug. People eat. There really are a lot of similarities.
But there’s an even deeper one.
At a funeral, a life has ended. At a wedding, a way of life has ended.
Zach didn’t just begin being a husband that day. In a sense, the single version of Zach died. His life is no longer solely his own. He is one with his wife, Gracie. Marriage requires laying down independence, selfishness, preferences, and the ability to simply ask, What do I want?
There’s actually beautiful Gospel imagery in that.
New life almost always requires some kind of death.
Maybe It’s Time to Let the Old Ways Die
This past summer, I had the gift of a sabbatical. Young Life gives staff members a sabbatical after seven years of service, and by God’s grace, I have made it seven years. That is, in large part, thanks to many of you.
Heading into it, I had a GRAND plan.
Things I was going to read. Things I was going to accomplish. Goals I was going to hit. Places I was going to go. People I was going to see.
I was very excited.
Then sabbatical started.
And reality set in.
I have three kids, five and under.
Turns out my plan of leisurely going off each day and accomplishing everything on my sabbatical checklist was very quickly hijacked by real life.
I’ll be honest, for the first two weeks, I just wanted to go back to work. Ha!
But like any season of life, sometimes you just need to give the dust some time to settle.
One day at the gym (one of my sabbatical goals was to get fit… I’m getting there), I queued up the A Star Is Born soundtrack. It’s so dang good.
A song came on that I honestly had never paid much attention to before. But this time, one line grabbed me:
“Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.” (listen here)
I. Could. Not. Shake. It.
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.
It became almost a question God kept putting in front of me:
What am I carrying that I don’t need to carry anymore?
What worked in one season but won’t work in the next?
What parts of me need to die so something healthier can live?
The song isn’t really saying that everything about the past was bad. And that became important for me.
Sometimes transformation isn’t about rejecting who you were. It’s about giving yourself permission to honor where you’ve been without believing you have to stay there.
I started letting go of my plans. I started letting go of the accomplishment checklist that so many of us find ourselves running after on the hamster wheel of life.
To be clear, lists aren’t bad. Goals aren’t bad. Accomplishing things isn’t bad.
But they aren’t who we are.
After a couple of weeks, I realized that reality was calling for a different kind of rest.
Rest from rushing through time with my kids.
Rest from feeling like taking care of my body was competing with accomplishing a ministry task.
Freedom to read something simply because I wanted to read it.
Some of my sweetest memories from sabbatical ended up being things that never would have made my original checklist.
Sitting down with Selah and working through a math workbook.
Going to the airport viewing area with Makenna to watch airplanes.
Watching Cade experience complete joy on a swing at the park.
Actually going on a DATE with Annika (this one was on the original checklist ;)) to Real Seafood Co. and not feeling bad about spending a night together with no kids. (Gift cards help. Ha!)
Actual rest. Actual relationship.
Even as I write this, I’m reminded that the battle between accomplishment and worth doesn’t magically disappear. It’s a daily battle.
Just because we were created to work doesn’t mean our worth is found in our work.
Some of my old ways had served me well. That’s what made them difficult to release. But sometimes faithfulness (or obedience) means being willing to release even good things when their season has ended.
Sometimes you have to let an old way die.
This Is My Story, This Is My Song
Right before my sabbatical, in late May, I took a group of our senior guys on a trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. These were the Day 1 kids, or Day 1 “Fellas” as I like to say. Honestly, these guys ARE Kentwood Young Life. They are why we do what we do.
I wanted this trip to be different from other Young Life trip. And it very much was.
I wanted to end this season—this chapter of life—with these guys intentionally and well.
So I created a project for them.
The idea was simple: Create a music album with your life.
It was based on the old hymn lyric from Blessed Assurance (shoutout Fanny), “This is my story, this is my song.”
Artists don’t accidentally write great songs. They work on them. They wrestle with the lyrics. They think about the beat. They rewrite. They edit. They decide what belongs and what doesn’t.
I wanted these guys to realize that their lives deserve that same kind of intentionality. With the Lord helping them, they have the opportunity to write a beautiful story with their lives—a story that can leave a lasting legacy.
So I broke the project into three albums:
The Past.
The Building Phase.
Legacy.
Each album has its own value. The first asks, Where have I been? The second asks, Who am I becoming right now? The third asks, What am I going to leave behind?
But part of the project was realizing that a GREAT album will contain a bunch of different songs and stories while still telling one BIG story from beginning to end.
Kind of like a book I know of...
Each night, we would sit around the dining room table, break bread together, and then get to work.
We would start in Scripture and let that guide our discussion. We’d read together, talk about it, and then I’d give them ten questions. They had plenty of time to sit with those questions and write honest answers.
Then they would spend about an hour looking back over their answers, the Scripture we had read, and whatever God had placed on their hearts, and they would put it all onto their records.
Originally, knowing how much time this would take, I planned to have everyone present their albums on the final night.
One of the guys quickly shut that idea down.
“I think we should present each night.”
In my head I’m thinking, Bro...that is going to take FOREVER.
Then a few of the others chimed in and agreed.
So that’s what we did.
And yes—it took HOURS.
But nobody complained.
Each night became an opportunity to hear each other’s stories. To hear each other’s pain. To hear their goals. To see their faith in action. To hear about the legacy they wanted to leave behind.
Some guys shared heavy burdens they were still carrying.
We cried. Honestly, we wept.
And we laughed. A LOT.
One moment from those nights especially sticks with me.
One of the guys finished sharing his record for that night, and we opened up the room for questions and comments. The other fellas just started encouraging him.
And they kept going.
They were breathing life into their friend.
You could see him starting to get emotional. His eyes were filling up. The encouragement kept coming until finally he couldn't handle it anymore.
“My eyes!”
And he just ran into the other room.
We all LOST it, dying laughing.
Not laughing at him. Laughing because we loved him and knew exactly what was happening.
A few moments later, he came back armed with tissues. We finished his record time the same way we finished each other—gathered around him, praying over him.
Getting high school boys to really share can be difficult.
But when we create space for them, give them purpose, and invite God into it, God is undefeated.
Those guys were given space to end a season of life well.
They got to look backward and understand their story.
They got to look at who they were becoming in the here and now.
And they got to look forward and ask what kind of men they wanted to become and what kind of legacy they wanted to leave behind.
But part of moving forward meant recognizing that this chapter really was ending.
There were things worth carrying with them.
There were things worth remembering.
And there were also things from their past that they needed to let go of.
Things they needed to let die.
A Funeral
And maybe that is why I can’t shake what Aden said, and what brings me back to Zach’s wedding.
“Weddings are a lot more fun than funerals.”
Because, if I'm being real, there is a little bit of a funeral happening for me too.
These fellas are leaving.
Soon they won't be wrestling in my living room on Wednesdays after school anymore.
I'll go to football games on Friday nights and somebody else will be wearing their jersey numbers.
There will be different kids walking through the doors on Monday nights, trying to get one more raffle ticket, yelling during games, and finding their spot in the room.
I'll still walk the same school hallways. I'll still sit in the same lunchroom. We'll still have Club on Monday nights and Bible Study on Wednesdays.
But it won't be the same.
And that's hard for me.
Because these aren't just kids who came to Young Life.
These are guys I've watched grow up; they were Young Life.
We've laughed together. Prayed together. Traveled together. Sat around tables together. Had hard conversations together. Talked about Jesus together. I've watched them win, lose, screw up, get back up, grow, and slowly become young men.
And now this version of our relationship is dying and I don't particularly like that. But maybe that's part of what God has been trying to teach me.
New life almost always requires some kind of death.
And I'm realizing that this season is dying. These guys are graduating. They're moving on.
And no matter how badly I might want to hold onto what we've had, I can't.
But that doesn't mean the story is over.
This summer, if you watched much of the World Cup, you probably heard a song from Judah & the Lion called Maybe the Best Is Now. I've had that phrase stuck in my head.
Maybe the best is now.
Not the best is behind us. Not even the best is yet to come. Maybe the best is now.
Because yes, these fellas are leaving. But there are more kids who need to hear the Gospel.
There will be new kids who walk into Bible Study after school for the first time. New kids who show up on Monday nights and have no idea what Young Life is. New kids I'll meet in the lunchroom whose stories I don't know yet. There's already a group of sophomore guys I'm excited to pour into for the next three years.
Maybe that's what I haven't been able to see while I've been mourning the end of this season. I'm looking around at what is dying, and God keeps pointing me toward what is coming alive. The guys I've discipled are becoming the guys who disciple somebody else. The kids who were once being pursued are becoming the people doing the pursuing. The kids who needed someone to tell them about Jesus are becoming the ones telling someone else about Jesus.
That's the whole point, isn't it?
I don't want these guys wrestling in my living room forever.
Okay... maybe part of me does.
But they were never mine to keep.
The prayer was always that they would know Jesus, grow up, and go.
And now they're going.
There is grief in that.
There should be.
You don't mourn something unless it mattered.
But there is also so much life.
New kids.
New relationships.
New leaders.
New opportunities to share the Gospel.
New chapters I can't see yet.
Maybe that's what I've been learning through all of this:
Some things have to die so we can make room for what God is bringing to life.
So, Aden—
Yeah, buddy.
Weddings are a lot more fun than funerals.
But I'm learning to thank God for both.
For the seasons that were. For the people who made them special. For the grief that comes when they're over and for the new life that comes next.
Because maybe the best ministry isn't behind us. Maybe the best ministry isn't somewhere out in the distance.
Maybe the best is now.
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