1/17/08

There’s a new man of God in Manning
By Jerriod Grizzle

JERRIOD GRIZZLE/Manning Times

Manning United Methodist Church Youth Minister David Green sits in his office taking a break from typing. Though Green has had his ups and downs, he is confident that God has led him in the right direction.

David Green has been the Manning United Methodist Church youth minister since last September and though he has only been in Clarendon County a short time he said he felt like he really got the job four years ago when he started down the path of youth leadership.

“Basically, God has been preparing me,” he said.

Green’s life story is one best described as God-led and is one filled with mystery, wonder and grace.

“I didn’t become a Christian until I was 28. I believed in Christ but before I met my wife I hadn’t been baptized. I had been to church maybe six times,” he said. “I remember going to church on events like Easter and Christmas.”

Green recalled a story of one Easter Sunday where he was invited by a friend to go to church. The church service included an Easter drama.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is engaging,’ but then after the service I got up and left,” he said.

Green’s call to a life of leading and counseling youth in Christ began when he met his wife, Tarrell.

“As we started to go to church together, I would listen to the message and it was if the minister was talking to me,” he said. “By and by, a conviction came into my heart. It was almost like God was tugging on my shirt and saying, ‘come here.’”

Green, who grew up in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida said the first church he attended regularly was where he first started working with youth.

“I started attending Lakewood Baptist Church and at that church, there were a lot of older members and not many in our age bracket,” he said.

Green said that since the youth of the church were nearer to his age, he and his wife started going out more and more with the youth minister at the church as well as with the youth members.

“We would go to events with them and more and more I filled in when the youth minister couldn’t be there,” he said.

When the youth minister at that church moved on to attend school Green found himself being asked to be the youth leader for the church.

Green accepted the position and had the first formal meeting with the youth as their leader at his house.

“It was a great time. We had Bible study and then afterwards we had two blenders going,” he said. “Trust me, you don’t want to know all the things that the youth put in their milkshakes.”

Green said his life has brought him ups and downs but that he has kept one thing in mind.

“How does what I am doing right now glorify God?” he said.

In 1999, Green and his family moved to Lakewood, Fla. and started looking for a new church and a new job.

“Once the family came, we wanted to move to the country, that is where we were both raised,” he said.
Green’s house was an expanded structure built on to a brick barn.

“It wasn’t the normal style barn you think of, it was a really nice country home,” he said.

Green’s second youth leadership position was almost passed up.

“I had a interview with Hernando UMC and I decided that they did not need a youth person. Later that night we had friends over who convinced us to go back to that church and after the service I went up and applied for the position,” he said.

He stayed at Hernando UMC for seven years where he said he was taught the important lesson of submission.

“One of the first things I did was hold a fast with the youth. You saw God’s hand upon all of our lives, ” he said describing the ritual.

Fasting to him was unusual because as an avid athlete he was used eating every three hours.

“When I fasted I learned to submit. I learned that we can do more than we think we can,” he said.

The tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001 brought a new perspective to Green and his leadership of the youth as Hernando UMC lost their pastor when he was recalled to the military as a chaplin.

A few days afterwards, one of the elders in his church told him that he needed to work with youth full time.

“Up to that point I had been a volunteer having other full times jobs. He handed me an advertisement for a full time youth leadership position at Inverness Presbyterian Church and I went home and prayed about it but I still fought it somewhat,” he said.

His prayer was answered and God’s life plan became clear for him when he attended a youth rally a short time later.

“The prayer of the night came and the minister said, ‘someone is holding back,’ I went to the front of the church during the altar call where the minister said to me ‘God wants you full time,’” he said.

Green asked others to pray with him to make sure he was listening to the right answer.

“I went home and said, ‘I have to submit my resume,’” he said.

Green was hired on the spot and stayed at Inverness Presbyterian two and a half years. During that time the youth group grew from 15 people to 50.

Green said that even there God was not finished with him yet.

“The church was not able to support a youth leader full time and so they had to let me go,” said Green.

Green and his family sold their country home in Florida and traveled up the East Coast and around, winding up in Colorado.

“I committed to a church in Fort Collins and I was the volunteer youth leader there,” he said.

Green later became part of the outreach for that church when he became the youth volunteer leader at Timberline Oldtown Church.

He then went to work in Laramie, Wyoming, as a pipe layer, laying natural gas pipes.

After four years, Green saw the youth of the church grow and God’s calling was still in his heart tugging at him all the time.

“I saw the desire for God and the need for God’s heart, I thought again, I can’t just be a volunteer. We all need that direct relationship with God,” he said.

Green went in search of a full time youth leadership position again, this time online.

“I applied two places and I was on the road to another interview and got the call from Manning UMC,” he said.

Green and his wife had always wanted to live in the Carolina area and came to Manning shortly thereafter.

He has asked and wondered why God would use him in such a fashion but his faith kept him strong through it all.

“There were points where I asked why but I never wanted to be out of God’s grace,” he said. “He has provided for my every need. There were hard times but God showed us his grace and provided for us.”

Green said he is happy with the life he has led and the path God has led him down.

Green has also been fortunate to still have some contact with the youth groups that he volunteered at throughout his life.

“I still get letters of thanks, thanking me for talking to them. It is the ones you don’t think you got through to that you did,” he said.

In December, the youth group of Manning UMC along with several sponsors and volunteers held a turkey shoot at Pocataligo Swamp. They raised money to go to a youth outreach fund for all kinds of youth activities.

Green and the youth group of Manning UMC just returned from a ski trip from Winter Place, West Va. Green said 43 people went on the trip.

“It was our first trip and we learned some things. We really didn’t know what to expect,” he said.

Green said the trip gave him a chance to get to know everyone personally.

“The vision is to try to guide them and bring them in the path of Christ. The Great Commission is make disciples. As Christians we should act in Christian manner whether it be work or home,” he said.