I remember the day that Tim invited me to Taco Bell. Tim, along with other youth leaders Matt, Dave, Tex, Keith, and Tom, made sacrifices and invested into my life regularly throughout my teen years. Before I tell you about our conversation at Taco Bell, I want to share that I had grown up in a Christian home and claimed Jesus as my savior my freshman year of high school on a cliff at Frontier Ranch Young Life Camp in Colorado, another story for another time. I had since returned to Michigan and was driving east on Vienna Rd to meet my youth pastor Tim at Taco Bell, wondering what he had to say.

Tim and I make some small talk as he politely purchases my tacos. But when we sit down he tells me something that I will never forget. He simply says, "JP, I see leadership in you." It was at that moment that I realized I had something that not everybody had. I had a gift, a calling, a responsibility, a unique attribute that made me a leader—a leader other people choose to follow.

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Fast forward twenty years or so, and I am honored that it's my turn now to make those investments into the lives of teenagers today. I am ready to be sent by God to a new opportunity doing just that—which is why you are reading this. You have a need in your community for a vibrant leader who loves God, sees teenagers as the church of today, and empowers a leadership team to join me in carrying out the mission to the community of students that desperately needs the love of God.