Michael McMinn sent me an email this week that caused me to begin re-remembering some hee-hi-larious memories of ministry to students in Honey Grove (yup… the “Sweetest Town in Texas”). The email discussed some ideas for a “5th Quarter” that McMinn is planning in a couple of weeks. And I promised him that I would relay the story of THE GREATEST 5th QUARTER in the HISTORY of ALL 5th QUARTERS.
First a little background…
In the summer of 2003, I had been serving the Lord in ministry to students for 4 years and had been serving in Honey Grove for over a year. The climax of our annual student ministry calendar was a trip to camp (just like most student ministries in the great state of Oklahoma and the North Texas area) at Falls Creek. We rented a small cabin (OKC Dumas Ave.) and loaded that rickety-building with 21 students and 10 adult leaders. The weather was hot, the food was great, the camp speaker was awesome (so awesome that I don’t remember who it even was), the relationships were amazing (God established an awesome community among that group of students and volunteers during that week), and the worship was solid. BUT… the reason that I share all this is only to lead into the GREATEST 5th QUARTER EVER.
Joel Engle was the worship leader that week… and honestly… he and his band did a great job leading. Joel had just released his CD entitled “Louder Than the Angels” and was selling this at his booth. One of my students (Brandon Clark) purchased the CD on the last day of camp and asked if he could play it on our HGSM sound system while we were eating dinner that nite. I popped it in… but had no clue that Brandon, Landon Sandy, and Nick Tredway (all three were in-coming Seniors) had pre-planned (and rehearsed) a karaoke lip-sync of the song “Living Sacrifice” from Joel’s CD. When the song came on… they all sprinted to the microphones (which were turned off) and began singing while pretending to play unplugged instruments. It was one of the funniest moments that I have witnessed in my life. From what I remember… there was very little dinner eaten that evening because every time we took a bite… it ended up back on our plates from the laughter.
Soooo… on to the 5th QUARTER…
Several weeks later, our small community of students and leaders were still telling the story of that nite and sharing the laughter each time that we heard the song “Living Sacrifice”. We had a 5th Quarter on the calendar for the end of August… so I gathered a team of our student leaders to help me plan for the event. We discussed all of the options (order some pizza, bring in a speaker, get a band, eat more pizza, maybe have some mexican food instead of pizza, or just have pizza) and decided that all of the most creative things had already been done (like eating pizza)… and had already been mildly successful at drawing a decent-sized group of 40-60 students (mostly students who were faithful at other churches) at each 5th Quarter. We decided that we needed to come up with something better. Something that would allow students to chill. Something that would allow them to laugh. Something that would lead them to ask more questions rather than trying to answer the questions before they were even asked.
It was in that meeting that Landon looked at Brandon… and then Brandon looked at Nick… and then all three of them looked at Amanda… which is always what my students do when they want her as an advocate BEFORE they present me with an idiotic idea (NOTE to my CURRENT STUDENTS: This doesn’t work anymore… dangit… alright… the truth… it almost always works). After much debate (and laughter) we developed a genius plan that led to the GREATEST 5th QUARTER of ALL TIME.
We decided to theme our 5th Quarter around Tex-Mex food… so we called it “The 5th Quarter FIESTA”. We decided that our small Fellowship Hall at FBC Honey Grove did not provide the right environment for a fiesta (and for chill conversation)… so we scrapped the use of any rectangle tables and brought in old couches and round tables only. We decided that a fiesta needed a special kind of headline band… so we officially invited a certain group of lip-syncers who were appropriately named “LSB” (Living Sacrifice Band). I remember telling Brandon that I was holding him responsible (since he was leading the charge on this from day one) and that I would do everyhting in my power to excommunicate him if this thing flopped (hahaha). The photo that is shown above is the photo from the actual 5th Quarter FIESTA promotional flyer that was circulated thoughout all of Honey Grove.
To be honest… I thought the FIESTA would draw about 50 kids (mostly connected to other churches) who would show up and eat our Tex-Mex cuisine (which was donated by Los Amigos in Bonham… and look at that… they are still gettin publicity from that donation… hahaa), catch some candy from the pinata, listen to me share a couple of thoughts about WHY we were meeting together to have a Spanish Party, laugh a little, maybe get their hands on a cheesy door prize, and hear short message (that was actually delivered by the unquestioned leader of LSB) before they headed home. I was shockingly (and thankfully) wrong.
We had so many students come to see LSB that my adult volunteer head-counter lost count at 100. Not only did those students come to see LSB make fools of themselves with a full set of SEVEN songs… but they also stayed to hear Brandon share his story about the Jesus that he loved… and they even called for an ENCORE PERFORMANCE from LSB!!! This was probably the funniest part of the evening because the guys didn’t even have a song that they had planned for an encore. As the 100-plus room was chanting “ENCORE! ENCORE!”… I was scrambling behind the scenes to find a song in the CD case that guys could perform to as their encore. We pow-wow-ed for a moment on the stage and decided that they didn’t know any of the other songs well enough… so they re-performed Joel Engle’s “Living Sacrifice” with NEW VIGOR… and each of them swapped their unplugged instruments to prove how diverse and talented they truly were.
Without a doubt, this was one of the most memorable and genuinely fun events that I have ever attended… and it was absolutely THE GREATEST 5th QUARTER of ALL TIME! In later conversations with students who attended the fiesta, I discovered that the number one reason why most students attended was because they respected Brandon, Landon, and Nick… and because they wanted to see them make fools of themselves publicly and shamelessly. But let me tell you… IT WORKED.
Our student ministry at FBC Honey Grove continued to grow over the next few months… and I still conversate with students who say… “Remember that one 5th Quarter when…”
(NOTE: The Living Sacrifice Band only performed once more… at Amanda and Ryan Weaver’s wedding reception in 2004. But I have heard some rumors concerning a reunion tour… Stay tuned…)
PRESS ON!!!
-Weav
