Points2Ponder By Alan P. Scaglione

  

“Sometimes a place can remind of a time when...you had so much fun!”

                                   Points2Ponder

                                                                                                       By Alan P. Scaglone

You ever walk into a place and realize…this has not changed one iota since the last time I was here—25 years ago!

Some things really don’t change—even though everything around it has!

It’s just amazing, and it really makes you nostalgic for the last time you were there, a “whole lot of wrinkles and a little bit of gray hair” ago.

They say time stands still for no man…but, apparently, Time stands still for a place!

POINTS2PONDER  Why is it that we walk into a place that we went to in our youth, and the memories come flooding back, and for a moment, you are transported back then?

I was a youth pastor for 15 years, 5 youth groups, 4 different churches. I loved working with the youth—they were real and in your face, and they could see through fake a mile away.

They taught me to always be myself because…it’s the only thing I could do better than anyone else—be ME!

And I learned my “I’m Just Sayin’” statement from Jananne Burcham. She was in my youth group at Thonotosassa Church of God, and she used to say that all of the time—made me laugh!

That youth group is the one I have a lot of fond memories of. I was 27, with 3 kids and a wife, and we devoted our home and life to those teenagers.

At one point, we were running a hundred on Tuesday nights. We would start out playing volleyball outside, and end up with Bible Study inside.

I do believe I preached my first sermons to those teenagers.

I remember my “Give God a Call—He’s always waiting to hear from you!” sermon. Teaching them that prayer was just a talk on God’s heavenly phone. I would give them a phone and tell them to talk to God.

They laughed, they got nervous, but…they got it! Prayer is a conversation with God like talking on the phone is a conversation with a friend.

Then there was the one “Is HE your Best Buddy or Bratty Brother—you take HIM wherever you go, so???” I taught them that if God were your best buddy, you would ask Him, “God, do you want to go to this party? How about this movie? What about this activity? If you don’t want to go, then I won’t go either!” OR…”Look God, I have to take you, but shut your mouth, don’t say a word and don’t make me wish I left you behind!”  That one taught them to ask “What Would Jesus Do?” BEFORE that line became popular! I had read the old book “In His Steps” where that challenge comes from, and I taught them from that short story.

I took them to Christian concerts sponsored by WCIE, Where Christ is Everything, at Carpenter’s Home Church.

We lived RADICALLY SAVED when Carman first sang that song!

And they are also the group I bucked the authority(church leadership) and took them to the beach, using our church van-- many times that summer.

We had so much fun together, my family of 5 and extended family of 95!

We fed them sandwiches and Doritos and played volleyball all day long on Saturdays, and YES, they all made it to Sunday School on Sunday—Brother A’s rule—(I would be Brother “A”!)

We bonded a bond that I am honored to say I still have with many of them until this day—evidenced by them asking to be my facebook friend and sharing our lives today while wistfully remembering our summer days on Siesta Key. They are in their mid-thirties now, with children of their own, some of their kids are even graduating from high school and going to college.

 And yet…we still remember…

Our Siesta Key Summer!

Guess…a memory is a great thing…when the memory was a great thing!

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