Dave Schroeder talks with students at an FCA meeting.

Youth urged to ‘swim upstream’

Oct. 14, 2007

Dave Schroeder, the new Montezuma High School principal, was ready to speak to many of his students – but not in an everyday setting.

This time, he was upstairs in the youth room at the Presbyterian Family Center, where more than 45 young people – about 33 percent of the high school enrollment – were attending a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting.

Like Schroeder, who was an invited guest, they were there on a Thursday evening (Oct. 11) because they wanted to be there.

“I’m a believer,” Schroeder said. “I don’t look at what I do as a job as much as I consider it a mission field. If I can help to make your lives a little better, I know that God is going, ‘wow!’”

In introducing Schroeder, John Bushong, one of the group’s adult advisors, said, “He has your interests as the number one thing in his job. And tonight you’ll hear from a side of him you don’t see at school.”

Schroeder worked at Northwestern College, a Christian liberal arts college in Orange City, prior to coming to Montezuma.

He kept his remarks brief, and introduced a video featuring Rob Bell, a youth pastor in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Bell’s topic was love and sex.

“Commitment, friendship and sex – the three together burn hotter than the three separately,” Bell said. “The three want to burn separately, but they don’t satisfy. The three were meant to burn together. You have a body, a soul and a spirit,” Bell said. "Love is ultimately a spiritual act. May you honor how God created you.”

After the clip, Schroeder told the group, “When you look at Hollywood actresses and the attention they get, well, I would be confused, too, about what love is. Sex has become like a recreational sport in our society.”

Earlier in his remarks, Schroeder said that everyone has what they need in the form of God’s grace. “God isn’t keeping a tab,” he said.

“The reason we have two ears and one mouth,” he said, “is that God wants us to listen more than we talk.”

Schroeder closed by doing “something I can’t do at school – lead you in prayer.”

Bushong followed the video clip and Schroeder’s remarks by saying, “What he (Schroeder) talked about is something God put on his heart. Our culture is pushing everybody into the sewer,” Bushong said. "To swim upstream against it is almost like trying to swim upstream in the Colorado River.”

“But,” said Bushong, “We have a group here that is willing to swim upstream.”

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes and an ecumenical Community Youth Group meet at 8 p.m. on alternating Thursdays in the Presbyterian Family Center.

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About 33 percent of Montezuma High school's student enrollment attended a recent FCA meeting.