BradDutton.com
The semi-regular ramblings of Brad Dutton.

You know, it’s a whole lot easier to write a revolution recap after something like this, or this happens.

Last night wasn’t one of those, though. Last night, right as Revolution was starting, 12 kids got up, and walked out the doors. I was on stage doing the welcome and announcements so as soon as I was done, I went outside and watched them leave our church campus. We have a uniformed police officer on duty every wednesday night so I told him our policy is once a kid leaves campus they aren’t allowed back that week. We have a lot of kids live close to the church so for the safety of everyone we have instituted that rule. Well, after our service is over I go outside and start talking to the policeman to see if they tried to come back. He said no and that he had one of his men drive up beside them and tell them again what the rules about leaving church campus were. Just at that time, 4 of them start walking back. I met them in the parking lot told them they have to leave or we’ll arrest them. They turn around, no problem. I then look over and see three more coming down the sidewalk. The policeman and I go meet them and it turns out these are the three that were specifically told they couldn’t come back. They knew about the rules, were warned of the rules, and then proceeded to break the rules. I had no choice but to have them arrested. And it absolutely KILLS me. My heart  was and still is literally broken for these kids. I started tearing up while driving home and by the time I pulled into my driveway it was a full-on weeping. I’m not talking about a few tears here, I’m talking gasping for air, snot-bubbles kind of weeping. It’s still hard for me to even type these words because I love these kids so much. This is the crappy part of reaching unchurched teenagers. Even though I was flat exhausted I slept maybe 4 hours last night. I had some really bad dreams and just felt a lot of spiritual warfare going on so I spent most of my night praying God would protect my wife while she was sleeping and not let her have bad dreams.

I think last night God gave me a glimpse of just how much He hurts for us when we mess up. I wonder how many times He has had full blown weep sessions over what I’ve done. I got to see just how broken Jesus is over my sin and how much my mistakes have hurt Him.

When was the last time you had a full-blown-all-out-puddle-of-a-mess cry?