Having lunch with a high school student…
Inviting a guy to share his testimony at the next youth group meeting…
Encouraging a girl to pursue her dreams...

Have you ever wondered if the little things you do from day to day as a youth pastor will ever make a big impact on students’ lives?

Three small things that other youth pastors have done for me have certainly made a huge impact on my life, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to tell you about them.
John Carmack was the first professional youth pastor I’d ever met, as the small youth group I attended was always led by volunteers. I was caught by surprise when John entered the Greenville (Texas) High School cafeteria during my junior year. Obviously a stranger to our school (and to me), one of my teachers pointed him in my direction. He walked over and sat down across the table from me, kindly explaining that he was the youth director at Aldersgate Church. I’d attended a funeral at Aldersgate just days before—the funeral of the woman I accidentally killed.

August 29, 1984
I was a 16-year-old girl driving to school on a farm-to-market highway. Moments after adjusting my rearview mirror to put lipstick on, I felt my car jolt suddenly. I got out of the car and ran to the back to see what I’d hit. I was shocked to discover a curly-haired woman lying face down in the grass next to a mangled bicycle.
I ran to call an ambulance, and 45 minutes later the paramedic arrived only to pronounce that the woman had been killed on impact. I returned home wondering, God, how am I ever going to face this woman’s family? I contemplated suicide more than once that dreadful day.

Later I received a phone call from the neighbor of the woman I’d hit. He explained, “Her name was Marjorie Jarstfer, and her husband would like to invite you to their home tomorrow night.” I felt as if I was being invited to face the firing squad.

As I entered Gary Jarstfer’s front door, I braced myself for an angry backlash. But I was shocked to see him come running toward me—not with animosity in his eyes, but with his arms opened wide! He scooped me up in the warmest embrace and held me as I sobbed into his flannel shirt, “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!”

Gary verbalized his forgiveness, then explained, “Shannon, we’ve served many years with Wycliffe Bible Translators, and there was no limit to how much Marjorie loved the Lord. She had such a close, intimate walk with God that she actually has been telling me how she sensed the Lord would be calling her home soon. She’d even taken out additional life insurance and shared her testimony at church recently about how she was ready to go to Heaven any day.”

I couldn’t fathom that someone could be so close to God as to know when her time on earth was about to expire. Gary continued, “Shannon, God was ready to take Marjorie home, and God chose you to usher her there because God knew you’d be strong enough to handle it. In fact, I’m passing Marjorie’s legacy of being a godly woman on to you. I want you to love Jesus without limits, just like Marjorie did.”

At the time, I couldn’t imagine what those words really meant. I thought I was a Christian; I mean, I was president of my youth group, for goodness sake! But I was living a double life—having sex with my boyfriend and rebelling against my parents.
After the accident, students at school proved not as merciful as Gary Jarstfer. Kids were either afraid to talk to me, or they asked really stupid questions like, “Is it true that you killed a lady?” Lunch was a daily recurring nightmare as other students continued avoiding me like the plague. If I ate at all, I usually sat by myself.

So the fact that John Carmack sat across from me at my lunch table made me feel like a human being again—a human who wasn’t so scary or pathetic.

He reminded me that God was still with me, and that the forgiveness offered through Christ was enough to cleanse me of my past misdeeds. John made me feel as if I was worthy of the time and energy he was investing in me. Through those occasional visits to the high school cafeteria, John gave me a renewed sense of dignity and hope that life just might go on.

Life Did Go On
I graduated high school in 1986, and from mortuary college in 1988. Working as a funeral director, I expected to embalm people in their 80s or 90s who died of natural causes. I was shocked, however, at how many bodies I embalmed every week of people in their 20s or early 30s—people who had died of full-blown AIDS or committed suicide after learning of an HIV-positive diagnosis. I recall standing over the embalming table many times thinking, There but for the grace of God go I.

After my incredibly promiscuous teenage years, I couldn’t fathom how or why God had saved me from contracting AIDS myself. I sensed God saying, “Shannon, I’ll redeem your past if you’ll trust me with your future.”

I’d fallen away from church altogether during my college years, so trusting God with my future meant getting involved in a congregation once again. I walked into Ridgewood Park Church in Dallas in the spring of 1989, eager to plug in. I began volunteering with the youth group where I got to know one guy, Greg Ethridge, particularly well.

Greg and I married one year later and continued working with the teenagers. One night the youth pastor, David Bard, asked if I’d be willing to teach a lesson or share a testimony some Wednesday night. Hoping to coax me, he explained I could go in whatever direction God led.

The direction in which God led was sexual purity, but I was resistant at first. “But God, they’re going to think I’m a hypocrite after how I lived my teenage years!” But just as Moses’ excuses didn’t change God’s call on his life, my excuses didn’t seem to matter, either.

I wrote out every word of what I wanted to tell these teenagers and was shocked at how much I had to say about the topic. As I was sharing my testimony verbally, I sensed as if I was doing not just what David had asked me to, but also exactly what God had created me to do. It wasn’t hard at all. It was one of the easiest, most rewarding things I’d ever done.

David seemed genuinely appreciative and offered to let me speak anytime I wanted. Sometimes I wonder if David Bard had any idea when he asked me to teach that God would use him to usher me into a destiny that I’m not sure I would’ve caught a glimpse of otherwise—because I soon left the funeral home and became a youth pastor. After 18 months of serving one congregation, I began traveling all over the country leading youth workshops on sexuality.

“Move to Lindale, Texas...”
In 1998, we sensed God saying, “Move to Lindale, Texas.” The log cabin home and 122-acre plot of land we purchased just happened to be next door to the Teen Mania Ministries’ campus. Learning more about the organization inspired me to come on staff as an advisor to college-age women. After several months I couldn’t help but notice how many of the females walked around the campus with the same neon sign on their forehead that I once had on mine: “I’m hungry for love, attention, and affection!”

I asked if I could teach a class for women on sexual and emotional integrity, which required that I submit weekly lesson plans. Rather than simply turn in a rough outline, I sensed God saying, “Write out every word of your lectures.”

At first I argued, “Come on, God! I’ve been speaking on this topic for years now! I don’t need to write out every word!” But sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night, unable to return to my slumber until I’d been obedient to what I knew God was telling me to do. I’d get up, go to my study, and cry out, “I don’t have anything to write right now!” Then, after I’d gotten my temper tantrum out of the way, God would lead me to my computer where the Spirit would inspire me one word at a time.

Words became sentences, sentences became paragraphs, and paragraphs became pages. After a couple of hours, I’d read back over what I’d just written and think, Wow! I don’t recall ever hearing that or saying that before! I felt as if God was speaking to me, and that I was simply taking dictation.

My 12-week class officially began in the spring of 2000 and soon grew from 30 to almost 300 women. This required me spending hours and hours in front of the copy machine so I could hand out all those lecture notes each week—plus, students began asking for additional copies for their friends, sisters, and even mothers. I grew weary and wondered how I could keep up with what God seemed to be doing when someone suggested, “You should turn those lecture notes into a book; then you wouldn’t have to keep making copies for everyone!” So I sent query letters to 13 publishers, and within a few months, received 13 rejection letters.

“Women don’t struggle with sexual issues,” they all said.

That’s when another couple of youth pastors made a huge difference in my life—Ron and Katie Luce, the founders of Teen Mania. After our sons played together in a T-ball game, our families went to lunch and Ron and Katie began asking how the class was going. I explained my dilemma. They could’ve just patted me on that back and said, “That’s too bad. We'll pray for you.” But they showed personal interest in my dreams and came alongside me to offer their best advice. Ron said, “Shannon, if you want to get a book published, you need to get a literary agent.”

“I have no idea how to do that. Do you have one you could recommend?” I inquired.
Ron introduced me to his own agent, who at the time just happened to represent Stephen Arterburn as well. Steve had just published the best-selling Every Man’s Battle, and his literary agent had been searching for a writer who’d be willing to tackle the topic of female sexual integrity in a companion series. When asked, I had to fast and pray about the decision for all of 10 seconds before knowing it had to be a “God thing.”

Doing Small Things with Great Love
Now that I’ve written Every Woman’s Battle (WaterBrook Press, 2003), Every Young Woman’s Battle (2004), Preparing Your Daughter for Every Woman’s Battle (2005), and Every Woman’s Marriage (2006), I sense I’ve fulfilled one of the many reasons I was born. However, had Ron not put me on the right path toward pursuing this particular literary agent, perhaps none of this would have transpired.

I’m so thankful for how the Luces, David Bard, and John Carmack allowed God to use them all in my life. It’s hard to fathom that their simple gestures of kindness, encouragement, and compassion actually led me to places where I could eventually fulfill God’s purpose for my life. But isn’t that how God works—through ordinary people like you and me, who do ordinary things, who just hope God might do something extraordinary through us?

In the words of Mother Teresa, “We can do no great things...only small things with great love.”

Therefore I encourage you, brothers and sisters in youth ministry, to continue doing small things for the students in your church with great love, trusting that those small things will make a big difference.