Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler, and I’m speaking to you today from Dowagiac, Michigan, where we’ve started off our first week of the summer with the Cola Clash. I’ve got a team of four students from Baptist College of Ministry with me here at this point, and our goal is to reach young people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And it’s just been a thrill to see what God has done here this week. Uh, we were able to talk to, uh, over three hundred young people. And, uh, we had, I believe on Wednesday night over sixty; last night, right around sixty came to hear the gospel.

And, uh, we praise the Lord. So far, fourteen have trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior. It’s just a privilege to see the power of the gospel at work in hearts.

Now here, uh, sitting with me, I have the pastor of the church here, Pastor Stacy Wilder. And as I was preaching to the folks of his church, uh, on Tuesday night, uh, challenging, challenging them to get involved, he shared a bit of his testimony.

And as I heard his testimony about how he came to Jesus and what the Lord did in his life after that, I thought this would be something that would be a blessing to you all here at the Thee Generation. Uh, so, Pastor, uh, thank you so much for joining us here on the podcast this week. I wonder if you could just take a minute or so and share how you came to Jesus Christ.

Pastor Stacy Wilder: Sure. One of the privileges I have as a pastor is I have the privilege of pastoring the church that invested in my life at thirteen, when I came to know Christ as my Savior. Uh, they—I started visiting, and my Sunday school teacher was going through the Romans Road.

And it was interesting. I always tell him he sent me to hell through the scriptures of the Romans Road, and then I would come up during Sunday morning service and Pastor Vickroy would show me how to come to know Christ as Savior. Did that for three weeks.

Mr. Elsey taught me how I was going to hell through Romans, and Pastor Vickroy taught me how to go to heaven through the scriptures during a Sunday morning service. And three weeks later, after that first visit, I trusted Christ as my Savior. And it wasn’t long after that a man by the name of Robert Elsie, who at the age at that time was fifty-three and a thirteen-year-old—I thought he was ancient.

Uh, I am now fifty and I see how he invested in my life in so many ways. One of the things that he did when I first came to know Christ as Savior, he said, there’s three key things: prayer, Bible reading, and church attendance. And he didn’t just tell me that; they started a Bible study not too long after I came to know Christ as Savior, on every Monday night for a year or more.

Mr. Elsey, who was a full-time farmer, he and another man who worked with him, would come in on Monday nights and teach a bunch of new Christians, a bunch of teenagers, and they gave them the Scriptures New Converts book—and I still have that book. I actually go through that book with people today—and they showed how you can know for sure that you know Christ as your Savior. What about church attendance?

What about Bible reading? What about prayer? And they just spent and invested time in the life of a young person.

It really made all the difference in my life.

Bobby Bosler: Amen. You know, we reach lots of young people all the time. And our heartbeat is that, uh, those young people would be taught from the Scripture.

And maybe, maybe you’re listening, and maybe you’ve gotten saved at the Cola Clash or War of Special Forces or something completely disconnected to that. I would challenge you to get involved with somebody who’s going to teach you the Bible. Now, Pastor Wilder, obviously, you’re a pastor now.

Pastor Stacy Wilder: Yes.

Bobby Bosler: And at the time when you got saved, you were not—you were a lost, probably slightly rambunctious teenager. And, um, there were probably some decisions that took place between then, when you got saved, and now. Could you maybe share just a little bit with how God worked in your heart and brought you to where you are today as a pastor?

Pastor Stacy Wilder: One of the things that our church did, which I believe is vital, is they gave what they called prayer parents to each teenager, and lo and behold, the Lord arranged it just by happenstance, but really by his calling. Uh, Mr. Elsie became my first prayer parent. And although—and I can remember when he first got that—“Oh, man, he’s old.

There won’t be any fun.” But, man, he taught me a lot of things. Uh, it was just whether or not it was going over his house on a Sunday night for popcorn with the other kids.

He invested in me, and it was through some of those things, but oftentimes through cards that his wife would send: “Stacey, just want you to know we’re praying for you.” And when I went off to college, uh, regularly, they’d say, “Stacey, I want you to know we’re praying for you.” But I didn’t realize it, but while I was at college, I’d get these letters. I didn’t know who they were from. They were anonymous.

And, uh, just the time I needed it to stay in school, the funds—those funds would be there. And after my four years of college, I got a letter from Mr. and Mrs. L.C., and it was all the thank-you cards that I got over the years. Uh, and I come to find out, it was they who were sending that money to help me stay in college.

So not only did they pray for me daily and send me encouraging cards, they invested in my life, and it made a huge impact in my life. And when they called and asked me to come and be their youth pastor, one of the first things I asked is, “Well, what does Mr. L.C. think?” And he said, “I would like you to be our youth pastor.” Now he calls me pastor.

What a great encouragement, a great privilege.

Bobby Bosler: Well, that’s wonderful. Praise the Lord. You know, I think there’s something in here not only for the teenagers, but maybe you’re listening and you’re a college student.

Maybe you’re a parent, maybe you’re just a layperson in the church. But, you know, as people get saved in your church, you might not think that your personal investment makes a difference. But there’s somebody I’m sitting across from right now who knows that it makes a huge difference.

So I would challenge you: don’t just look at the teenager and think, “Oh, they’re scary. I don’t want to spend time with them.” Look at that teenager and recognize God has a plan for that young person. God wants to use that person.

And if you invest in them and spend time with them, God very well could change their lives. God could call them into the ministry, and God could use them to be a blessing to you in the future. Well, this has been stirring.

Thank you so much, Pastor, for taking some time and sharing your testimony with us here today. I trust that you’ll be blessed listening here to the Thee Generation Podcast.