Super dad and mentor changing lives

Working with youth brings personal and ministry growth

Chris Reis had other people outside the family who helped mold his character by teaching him about God and what the Bible says. He now does the same.

Did anyone become a surrogate father after your dad left when you were 2-years-old?

My mom, honestly, was the rock for everything. Sometimes single moms have to become both parents. She is a phenomenal mom. Honestly where I found that kind of male figure was a lot of time through sports, that mentorship. Growing up I had a coach who would pour into me at a young age, Dennis Blackstone, not just because I was a good athlete, but he actually poured the Gospel into me. He began slowly planting a seed when I was young. He was that pseudo-father for me in that sports realm. 

We look back now, and my dad calls himself a “part-time dad,” always in my life, but never really “in” my life. He tried to be around, but he lived in a different state so I saw him every now and then, sparingly. My dad tried the best he could, with his addictions and he had another family. We related on a sports level, but that was it. We didn’t have a lot in common. It was a very shallow relationship. We called my dad the “fun dad” because when he would come to town we’d go to arcades and go hiking, do all this fun stuff and then he would leave. That was one weekend out of two or three months. I tell people all the time, with my dad I was experience rich, but relationally poor. That’s the thing, we did a lot together when he was in town, but relationally it was very poor, and he never really showed me what a relationship was, he wasn’t an example. My dad would tell you that today. That’s how he was then, but not now.

I didn’t realize how broken the relationship was until I came to know Christ. The Bible says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” I think when we look at God as love, we can’t truly know love until we know God. We think we love, but it is not real love. That was the hard part. After I came to know Christ, my dad would say, “I love you” and he meant that, to his extent of love. It was heart-breaking to me. In college I really had a burden on my heart for my father that he would come to know Jesus, and he did in an amazing way.

When did you know you wanted to work with youth?

I didn’t even know I had a passion, or interested in it, but it started back in college with my mentor Derek Moore, the chaplain at Georgia Tech. He asked me to come to an SGA camp in the summer to be a huddle leader. I thought to myself, “There is no way I can lead high school kids in the Bible.” I felt clueless and so unqualified, scared out of my mind. It was probably a huge turning point in my walk of faith All through college I had that, then getting into the NFL, doing camps was a ton of fun. But I never wanted to be a pastor, that was never my goal after the NFL. I didn’t even know that was going to happen. I told my dad, “I’ll never be a pastor, I don’t want to work for a church,” and sure enough, God said, “I have different plans for you.” 

When I came down to Our Savior’s Church, I still didn’t plan on being a pastor and then a year in, they came to me because the youth pastor had moved on and asked if I wanted to be a youth pastor. I said, “I guess so.” I had no idea what I was doing. My first time preaching to the youth there were 28, a small crowd. Now all our campuses together and we had more than 500 at our last monthly gathering. God is doing amazing things. It’s not because I’m good, but because God is faithful.  

What is the biggest challenge for youth today?

We all struggle with identity. There is so much this generation underneath us have, that we didn’t have — technology that transforms the way we get information. When I was growing up, in order to get information you had to go to an adult, to have a relationship and get that from an adult. A book was one thing, but you had to go to the library. 

Nowadays they get out their phone or get on a computer, iPad and get information anywhere. That is not the problem. Processing that information is the problem. All this information from this culture is bombarding them left and right with how you should look, dress and speak, people you should be with — and this is how relationships are — the hardest thing is tearing down the lies the enemy has built up in their life. It could be from their family, around culture. It’s difficult to tear down lies. The only way is with truth. 

The next generation doesn’t need more church services, they need relationships with people, Godly people. This next generation is hungry for community. They are online and social media and that’s not a real community, a pseudo-community. They are longing for real, but they don’t know how to do it. If anything the church provides, it has to be community, not a church service. Yes there’s going to be the Gospel and music, jumping around and it’s going to be great. But at the end of the day, if they don’t make that next step to get into small groups, they will be lost. We want to make sure they are connected. 

We believe in real relationships. There you see life exchange happen and when that happens, there if life change. I want to get these students plugged in and start tearing down the lies of this world. The only way to do that is by hearing truth. Faith comes by hearing, the Bible says. The biggest, hardest part is getting through the lies built up by culture, media, what they are bombarded by daily, so just trying to preach truth, the Gospel so they can see truth, believe it and move in it, walk in it. 

“I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.” 1 John:2:13, New International Version