Don Livesay
Lake Union President 

Guest Editorial: Last month, I wrote of the need to engage our young adults in a more intentional way. I have asked Kessia Reyne Bennett, a seminary student, to share her story of how a small Adventist church made a huge difference in her life.—Don Livesay

I was 13 years old, visiting my non-Christian father for summer vacation as every year before. Yet, over the last several weeks, something crazy had happened to me: I encountered the Word of God, beautiful and powerful and full of truth. I began to pray, to worship, to search the Scriptures. Life was changing. As that summer drew to a close, I reached a crisis point. It was time to go back to school in California, which meant I would be leaving this community of Christian disciples in Washington. ... I had the hem of Christ's garment in one hand, and my torn fishing net in the other. What to do? To leave Washington basically meant giving up my faith. I knew that to go back home would be to sound a death knell to this new discipleship. But to stay in Washington meant leaving home, leaving my family, leaving my friends and everything I knew.

Then God brought to me Mark 10:29–30: "'I tell you the truth,' Jesus said, 'no one who has left homes or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel, will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields—and with them persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life" (NIV). That was it. I knew what I had to do. With some lingering trepidation, I phoned my mother to tell her I was moving to Washington.

I had become a disciple of Christ on His promise to give me a hundred times as much as I had forsaken: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers. At the time I had no idea what that might mean, but God provided all of it and more in a Seventh-day Adventist church that welcomed me, bought me my first "Sabbath clothes" and took me to the doctor when I was sick. They fed me countless meals and drove me countless miles. They gave me a safe place to be during the Sabbath hours and they gave me their time, mentoring me during my teen years. In them I had not just a hundred mothers, but a hundred grandparents, a hundred brothers, a hundred sisters, a hundred homes, a hundred couches, a hundred dining tables, a hundred people—and more—that sheltered me and "family-ed" me.

This small congregation encouraged me to spend my life in the service of God's Church, and they were the ones who sent me to college, paying in full for my four years at an Adventist university, sometimes literally with buried treasure: one large donation came from the discovery of silver buried by the late husband of a widow in the church. She said if it could be found, then it could be used to pay for my studies. It was found!

And so it was that Christ fulfilled a mighty promise through a small church. I stand as an example of what God can do for a hurting world through the lived-out love of His people. So let us never underestimate the usefulness of a congregation, no matter its size, to work miracles in God's name. To what miracle has He called your church?

Note: The message on this page is the Editorial in the current issue of the Lake Union Herald. It will be updated monthly.