Over the past decade, Lake Avenue Church has provided me with an abundance of life-giving relationships. I’ve developed my closest friendships and encountered my most influential mentors at Lake. While all of these relationships have challenged and fostered my personal and spiritual growth, few have had as much impact as my friendship with John Heck.
My friendship with John began within an intergenerational small group that he and his wife hosted in their home. I knew that John and I were very different from the moment we met. In addition to the obvious 60 year age gap, we also had different taste in people, hobbies, music, fashion, and pretty much everything else. However, we did have two common interests: God and food. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
We began meeting over lunch to discuss who God was and how He related to our lives. I was a junior in high school at the time and was beginning to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. I was trying to decide how I was going to live my life and what was going to define me. John listened to me and spoke from his own experiences, but he never told me what to do. He sought to understand my perspective without forcing his onto me. He allowed me to ask the hard questions about life and gave me the tools to find the answers myself. These “tools” were pieces of knowledge that only come with age and experience.
My friendship with John is what I can only describe as a divine appointment. I wasn’t looking for a mentor and he wasn’t looking to mentor anyone, but we stumbled into this relationship that we both knew was from God. While it was clear that God had His hand on this friendship, it definitely required a lot of honesty, transparency, and vulnerability from both of us. Admittedly, this was the hardest part of the relationship for me. Yet, it was these values that yielded the most growth. I learned so much about God’s love, grace, and faithfulness from our many conversations. I hope that everyone gets the opportunity to experience this type of intergenerational relationship.