Welcome to First Focus, a podcast here at First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, where we highlight various events and ministries around the church. I'm Troy Cash, the intern for Pastoral Care, and one of your hosts. And I'm Josh Adair, your other host, the pastoral intern of Biblical Counseling. Who do we have on the show this week, Josh? This week, we're interviewing a good friend, David Henderson. David's the director of our Young Professionals and College Ministry here at our church. He's going to be sharing with us about what this season of COVID has looked like for them, as well as what they have coming up this fall and what he's most excited about. If you have questions about the show or any ministry at the church, don't hesitate to contact us. You can find all our contact info on our website, which is firstpresscolumbia.org. That's firstpresscolumbia.org or on our app. Let's get to the conversation. Well, welcome back to First Focus. I'm Josh Adair, one of your hosts, and with me today are Troy Cash, who is also learning and eventually going to begin hosting this podcast as well with me. Troy, why don't you say hello? Yes, hey, thank you for your graciousness. Good to have you, brother. And then David Henderson, a good friend and also the director of Young Professionals in College Ministry here at our church. David, could you say hello? Yeah. Hey guys, thanks for having me. I'm glad to finally get the invite here. I've been waiting for years to able to do this podcast and finally got invited, so I'm honored to be here. Thank you. Finally got invited, for sure. For sure. Finally returned the emails. Very excited to be here. No, it's so good to have you, David. Thank you. And David, you've been directing the Young Professionals ministry here for how long? Oh, put me on the spot. Two years? Two and a half years? It's been two years since we've launched it, and the Lord has seen some amazing growth in that season. And then you were also running back into another spring with our vibrant young professionals ministry here at our church this past spring when everything with COVID hit and the church began to shut down. And so I thought we've been using this podcast as a way to both tell the story of what this season's been like for different populations in our church, but also to get the newsy things out of what's coming up this fall as we're going back into worship, and I thought what we would love to hear from this, because we've already heard an update from the college ministry, is how has this season been for the young professionals as a ministry and also individually in their lives, you know, single or married, as we've walked and navigated through this pandemic season? Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that we were getting up and running right before COVID. We'd had a couple years and just launched Sunday School the year before, and so we had just launched Bible studies. Actually, we just launched a men's Bible study in January, and we're meeting at ENDA every week, and things were going well, and then it just got shut down. So I think guys were really excited to finally be meeting in smaller groups and intimacy and studying the Word of God together. And the girls actually hadn't even launched their Bible study, so theirs started virtually, and now we're up and running with both. Praise to the Lord for that. But it's been a challenging season, I think, like it has been for everybody. COVID sort of brought the worst out, I think, in everybody during this time. I think young pros have learned, whether they're single or they've been married, that contentment is hard to come by. That's one of the words that stuck out to me, I think, this season that Paul says in Philippians 4, that he learned the secret of contentment, that it's a mystery. And he learned it, you know, he's writing these words that that it's important to think about contentment, learn contentment, even writing that he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him in Philippians 4, and we usually see that tattooed on a basketball player's arm or talked about after a big touchdown. For sure. I don't think he had 21st century sports in mind when he wrote it. Really? I don't think he had that in mind. The Spirit could have illuminated that, but I think what he had in mind was, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, even be content in suffering. And as he writes it, he's in a Roman prison. He's sitting in a prison cell, and in chapter one of Philippians, he's saying that God has used this for His glory, and the Roman guard has come to know Him through it. So contentment is a lesson that often is best learned in suffering, and I think that For my own life, for students' lives, and for young professionals' lives, we really don't want to learn that lesson until we have to learn that lesson. And when we're learning the lesson, it's really hard. So I think young pros have learned, if I'm single, I have to find ways to find contentment. I think it's a challenging season to be single. I know some who started dating during COVID. I don't know how you do that. I know others who have... Six feet apart. Yeah, yeah. Six feet apart. Masked dating. You know, I think it's been a challenge if you don't have someone to go home to, to learn what it means to lean into and rely upon Jesus. during COVID has been challenging. But for marrieds, you promised to be with this person for your life, you were excited to be with them, but that didn't mean that you were excited to be with them for every single moment of every day. And for a few months there, that's what some newlywed couples look like. I love this person, I'm excited about being with this person. Actually, we're in the same house nonstop together for months, and they're learning contentment with the Lord, contentment in the relationship, trusting Him for the next steps. So contentment would be one thing, but the second thing that really pops to mind is desire. that there has been this hunger and thirst for more. And sometimes desire can go sideways on us. I'm thirsty for intimacy, and so I'm gonna run over here to this well and try to find it, but it won't ever satisfy me. Or I'm thirsty for being with God's people in the word, but because I can't have that in this capacity right now, I'm gonna numb out in some way. So it's interesting to me that those two things, I think, have been running in tandem. That the Lord's trying to teach me contentment while also showing me what my desires are pointing to, how they just can't totally be met in COVID, in isolation, because I'm made for relationships and I need to be back in the church. And I think that's part of why we've seen a lot of young pros come back quicker, even the general population, some of its health. So contentment and desire, I think, have been two lessons I need to learn, but also that I'm seeing young pros wrestle through. That's amazing, man. You know, it's really encouraging to hear how the Lord uses even this difficult season and our suffering collectively in this way to draw out our corporate sort of relating to the body as a really critical need that we have. That's something that everybody's gone through. But also, in the younger generation, I'm part of it, so I can say our generation's so often critiqued for being so highly individualistic, like, to think of the fruit that the Lord is bearing in this season in people's lives, not only to make them see the value of suffering and finding contentment in the midst of this fallen world, but also the value of God's corporate people, and how much I need them, and how much my life cannot be normal, really, without them. And so that's really encouraging to hear, but it's also really hard to hear, you know? Yeah, but it's a great point. As much as our culture would say it's about the human individual, COVID has disproved that completely. Because those who have embraced COVID lifestyle are not doing well, and the rest of the world is ready to get over it and ready to move on into community. because we're made for it. We have to be in it. I mean, it's even why things like Instagram actually exist, though they're individually focused in this sort of virtual community. I still have to let people know about what's going on in my life. I have to be in community, and Zoom just doesn't cut it. You know, I've been thankful for Zoom. Really? You don't love a good Zoom? I'm so not Zoomed out. I'm kidding. It's awful. I told our teams that if we have to keep going forward and doing Zoom, we're just shutting the ministries down for you, because we just can't do this anymore. It was a blessing, the Lord used it, but we're glad to be back together to some extent. For sure. And that's not to say that that's not valuable and anything like that, it's more so just technology really can't cut it. All these imitation forms of the genuine thing, they're so good because they're so easily imitations of the real thing, but when the real thing's not there, it loses its traction and traffic in our lives, and so... Well, I'm so encouraged to hear about how the Lord's using the season and Young Pros even if it's bittersweet. But thankfully our Lord is the one who makes what's bittersweet. So you mentioned you guys have started back. What are the plans for the fall? What does it look like for you guys? What are you excited about moving forward? I think we're mainly just excited to be back, to some extent. It's weird, it's different, we're spread out, but it's better than it could be. Last week I was sitting in my car at my kids' baseball game, on Zoom, on my phone, speaking at a weekly meeting on campus. And I thought, thank you, Jesus, that we're doing some live things at the church right now, and some other places haven't been able to get there yet. And so I was thrilled to be able to do that, but it just made me even more thankful for the fact that we're doing some live stuff in humanity. So we think of our ministry with three words, upward, inward, and outward, that we're always thinking about what it looks like to grow in our upper relationship with Jesus, with Father, Son, Holy Spirit, what it looks like to inwardly grow in our community and deep koinonia fellowship, and what it looks like outwardly to leave the city better than we found it, to have an influence, to share the gospel with our word and our works. And so we're always thinking about those three things sort of philosophically, but we tend to do those in three or four ways, four we talk about a lot. One is large groups. So our Sunday school's up and running, and we're studying Ten Commandments for today's culture, really talking about the ethical implications of the Ten Commandments. And so, so much has come out of that that's been really wonderful, and it's just so good to be back together. with the folks that are coming. And then we do small groups, women on Tuesday nights at seven here at the church, and men on Thursday mornings at 7 a.m., women at night, men in the morning. And that is sort of a taking a deeper time. It's the same study, but it's an opportunity to talk about it in a more deep and practical way for our lives. So large groups, small groups, and then one-on-one we really push the foundry, encourage people to get involved with it. We have a lot of young pros who have gotten involved with it. I want to say probably 30 or 40 this year that got involved between guys and girls. That's awesome. Which is really exciting and of course Mayor Louise, myself, and Richard taking our time to pour into young pros regularly. They have been phenomenal. We have an incredible staff who really just go hard after women and go hard after men and pour into them, have them in their homes, mentor them through hard times. It's been fun to watch. And so large groups, small group, one-on-one, and then parties. which I think we might be the only ministry in the church that has that as one of our missional objectives. We like to party. But the perspective is how do we get together as friends inside the church in a way that accomplishes, especially we always want to honor the Lord, But in our parties, we're focused on the inward and outward dynamics, that we are fellowshipping outside of the church setting, and that we are thinking about the lost in the city that can come. And so we try to be strategic about how we go about those parties. I'll often have young pros ask me, is this party something I could bring my friends to that don't know the Lord? And what I say to them is, really, that if there's anything in the church that we're doing where the answer to that is no, we need to reevaluate it. So just assume the answer's yes. Sure. Bring your lost friends. But especially with these parties, it's sort of an entry point to relationships. And so Troy, you were there last week when we had a party at Owens Field, and it's just hanging out, having dinner. Chef Rich does an awesome job for us. Yeah, it's great. In a week or so, we'll do a tailgate sort of gathering, and in November, the second year we've done this, we do a big barbecue, bluegrass, and barn party. This year it's out at Richard's family's farm, and his dad's doing a pig, and we have a bluegrass band. What we want to do is things that we think their friends at work would say, that sounds pretty fun, maybe I'll go to that. And we just start building relationships, and maybe that's the entry point to invite them to a deeper conversation, to a Bible study, to church, whatever it may be. So it really is a big part of our emphasis. So far, the Lord's been very gracious, and we've been able to do all those things, and we're just praying that we can continue moving forward. I think the young pros are just excited to get back into some sense of normalcy with their church. We're not there yet, obviously, and there's some hurdles we have to go through. But God has been very gracious, and we've been really thankful for that. Can you imagine what the fruit could be of a generation of young professionals who have such a hunger and passion for the corporate body of Christ, that they're just willing to do anything to fight the kingdom of darkness, to see it flourish, and also partake of it? Yeah, you know, actually I was talking to Greek students last week, through a great ministry, Greek Impact, that we partner with in the college ministry. And as I was talking to them, you know, when I was talking about these two things that have come to mind, because they asked me to share about my experience in the pandemic, and contentment and desire came to mind. And so, you know, I said, you guys are going to be the first generation ever, living generation, that's had to shut down their university because of a pandemic. There's been other reasons why universities have had to shut down over time, but in the last 50 years, I can't really think of a time where maybe that's happened for this extended period of time and things are virtual and all those things. So there are going to be things that generations before you have learned. But what if you graduated from here and two of the biggest things you learned were contentment in Jesus and a deep desire for the church, for being in the means of grace with the body of Christ? Man, like you just said, Josh, the culture changer that that could be if every college student graduates that way right now, or if just the believing college students graduate that way, or young pros take that mentality. Really, the time is ripe for that kind of growth, and I'm speaking to myself, I need that. I need to grow in those areas, so I'm thankful for what God's doing. in a hard time. Amen, brother. And thank you too for sharing, even just out of your own experience, what those things have been like for you. But that leads me to my last question for you. Thank you so much for sharing what you have about this ministry, David. I'm encouraged to see you laboring so faithfully and fruitfully among them. How can the folks who listen to this podcast be in prayer for our young professionals ministry? What's one thing you're trusting the Lord for and asking Him for in this season? Well, always praying for their love for Jesus to grow and their love for His people to grow. But maybe pragmatically, maybe pessimistically, I'm always waiting for the bottom to fall out. But what I mean by that is, anytime something's going well in the church, conflict is coming. We've seen that in our church overall. We've seen that in these different ministries. And so just over the years, I'm always kind of optimistic, excited, but waiting for what's gonna be the thing next that's gonna cause them to maybe fracture in their walk of the Lord with one another. I don't know that it's praying against that sort of conflict, but it's that we can weather it, because it's coming. COVID was a massive one of those. Sometimes cliques are those, sometimes it's alcohol, sometimes it's immorality, but that the Lord would give us the strength as individuals, as people, as a ministry to weather those storms, and that we wouldn't see conflict as the enemy, but actually it's an opportunity for the Lord to grow us individually and corporately together. So praying that the Lord would help us weather those storms that come. Amen, brother. Such a huge blessing to hear your heart for this ministry and also to see your foresight and vision, to see what could potentially hinder it, but also to see how you're charitably living and trusting the Lord to work in the midst of it. And so I'd invite our listeners to be praying for this very strategic ministry in our church. We're so grateful for your presence here today, David. Thank you so much for the work that you're doing. You don't do it for the thank yous, but you guys are doing a phenomenal job, and I'm so grateful for you here. Well, that's why I came today. I was just wanting to thank you. That's what he told me when he came in. Yeah, so we finally got to it. I was waiting. Oh, man. Thank you for thanking me. And thank you for thanking me for thanking you. It's a delight. This is a great city to minister in, a great church to labor in. with a great Savior guiding us, and so I'm honored to be here, and thanks for having me up today. Well, thank you so much, and friends, please be in prayer for this ministry. If you have any questions about this episode or even another ministry at our church, please don't hesitate to contact us. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry of young professionals, you can email David Henderson, dhenderson at firstpresscolumbia.org, and we look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks so much. Thanks for joining us here on First Focus. If you'd like to stay connected with our show and be made aware of new episodes as they're released, download our app, FPC Cola, on the App Store or Google Play. We hope that you'll join us again next time. I'm Troy Cash, and until then, God bless.