About six months ago I got an email from a young college kid seeking me out. He explained that he had been reading this blog for some time and that what I was writing was really helpful to him. He was in college and volunteering as an intern at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX. I really encouraged him to make the 3 hour trip down to Austin and come hang out. He keeps a pretty busy schedule between school, work and his internship, it just hadn’t happend yet. As I was making plans to visit DFW last week, I was being pretty particular and secretive on my planning. Technically, my family was on vacation, so I didn’t want to book my entire weekend up meeting people. Since I had limited time, I didn’t really tell many people that I would be in town. I picked a few people that I felt like I needed to see and contacted them. I really didn’t tweet much and I had been pretty quite about my trip on the blog.

Then, on Thursday I got a facebook message from Justin. He said that he knew I was in DFW and he really wanted to meet me. At first I thought… “How does this guy know I’m in DFW?” I later realized that I’d accidentally said something about it in a random post last week. Doh! So, he was like a dog with a bone… I’m not sure I had a choice. Justin was going to meet with me. Ha! Actually, it worked out really well as I had a break on Saturday morning, so we met for breakfast. I totally respect his drive and tenacity.

We spent two hours talking ministry, life, education and ministry strategy/philosophy. It’s been a while since I’ve met someone with the passion and energy that Justin has for ministry. Seriously, it reminded me of myself as a young 21 year old part time Children’s Pastor while working on my degree. The whole world was before me and I was going to change it. Justin graciously allowed me to give him my opinions on education and share with him some things I learned early on. It was a great time and I left our meeting grateful.

Last night Justin called me. He just wanted to tell me that he had done a few things I’d recommended. He’d signed up for Jim Wideman’s “The Club” and he’d registered for the Orange One Day in Dallas next month. He’s like a dog with a bone. We made plans for him to come down over the holidays and spend a few days with me.  What a treat for me to have a guy like Justin in my life. Look out Kidmin, make note of this guy. In a few years, he’s going to be tearing it up and making waves in the kidmin world.