Two Veterans. One Amazing God.
Max Lemons and Sanford Miller, Sr. are two staff members here at Emerald Youth Foundation who have served in our country’s military.
Lemons served in the Air Force for over 21 years and Miller served in the Army for four years. Both enlisted as young men, and although they joined for different reasons, both are quick to emphasize the sovereignty of God in their decision to join. God used the military as an avenue for both men to draw closer to Christ.
Miller called it his “Damascus Road experience where God really touched me … and revealed to me it was time to grow up.” He said that being a part of the military “saved my life and changed my paradigm on life in general.”
Likewise, Lemons said being in the military made him aware of a “void, something missing,” and he couldn’t figure out what it was until he went back to church.
Both men focus on God’s work throughout their lives and military careers.
“Every little brick builds the house,” said Lemons, describing how God used all his travels and all his experiences, both in and out of the service, to get him to this point serving with Emerald Youth as Calling & Career Ministry Director – South Area.
Miller, Sports & Recreation Ministry Director – Lonsdale/West Area, talked about God’s way of using all the “detours in life” to get him where the Lord wanted him to be while “blessing me in each avenue, in each stop.”
As these men reflect on their lives, one thing sticks out – they were in training for what God had next: their leadership roles here at Emerald Youth.
“Out of all the experiences and all the things that the Lord had me do … I can take from this and from that and be the best kind of leader that I can be. It’s a culmination of all those years,” said Lemons.
What kind of leader is that?
For Lemons, it’s the kind who spends a day clearing out a community garden to help people, when no one in the community will even know he’s done it. The kind of leader who takes the afternoon to sit in a military recruiter’s office with a teen at a crossroads, listening to all the questions and answers, and then takes that teen to lunch and spends even more time defining terms, helping them weigh their options, praying with them, and asking for God’s direction and discernment.
In Miller’s case, it’s the kind of man, coach and pastor who takes a student full of anger and rebellion and sees in them, as he puts it, “a young Pastor Miller.” (In addition to his role with Emerald Youth, Miller serves as pastor of New Salem Baptist Church in East Knoxville.)
He then starts loving on them, not giving up on them, persevering with them.
Miller said, “I tell young people, ‘I can share with you what to do or what not to do because I’ve already lived it.’ Everything I went through wasn’t for me, it was to help somebody else out, so they wouldn’t make that same mistake.”
That’s Miller’s favorite part about being on staff with Emerald Youth: pouring the love of Christ into kids’ lives and helping them be all that God has called them to be. He agrees with Lemons’ opinion that “everything you touch is a ministry … to love people, to help people.”
Servant Leadership is a term that gets used in many corporate settings. It is a philosophy where leadership positions are not just positions of authority to be attained, but they are others-focused roles where authority is used to improve the lives of those being led.
Many seminars on YouTube or slides on Pinterest explain the concept in greater detail and teach how to incorporate it in business, but to see it in action, spend a day with Max Lemons or with Pastor Sanford Miller.
Lemons may put you to work, digging out roots in a garden, or Miller may put you through a little taste of boot camp in the gym, but you’ll come out the other end better off and grateful for the time.
These men look back on their years in the service of our country and see the hand of God orchestrating all the pieces, using the big decisions and small decisions, the inconveniences, trials, joys, and lessons, all to prepare and bring them to Emerald Youth.
And we are so grateful that He did!
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