Skateboarding for Jesus

Yesterday, a local Metro Detroit skateboard legend, Shaun Hover, stepped off of a plane from Los Angeles to Detroit. Under normal circumstances, this would not elicit a blog posting. Shaun, just two years removed from being a teen, recently returned from training as a missionary in China with Y-WAM. Youth With a Mission is one of the best teen/young adult ministries I know of.

While in China, Shaun used his skateboarding abilities to draw crowds and befriend some of the thousands of teens who roam the streets of her large urban centers.

Eight months ago and because of other details I won’t get into, Shaun started attending our worship gatherings with a group of his friends. From day one, it was clear he was the leader. I knew, “If I get Shaun interested in authentic Christian spirituality, I’ll get the whole group.”

I’ll never the forget the day he called to tell me. I was speaking at a leadership retreat at a monastery not far from Rochester when I noticed I had seven or eight missed calls on my cell phone. The missed calls were all from Shaun. Monks don’t like it when you walk around the retreat center with your Ray Charles ring (“Georgia”) turned to level six.

Immediately, I thought, “Oh, my God. Something is terribly wrong.” So, I walked outside and called Shaun back conjuring up as many different tragic possibilities as I could imagine. Car accident. Death. Overdose. For some reason, I could only imagine tragedy.

“Shaun, this is Josh.”
“Yeah?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Dude. Relax. I just wanted to let you know I want to get baptized.”
“Oh.” My heart settled back to where it was supposed to be.

Here’s what I wrote the balmy Sunday in August in which we baptized Shaun.

We don’t know what the future holds for Shaun. The possibilities are endless. One thing I do know. One of the greatest joys of following Jesus is taking risks and watching different people come alive to his presence and mission in the world.