Butler graduate returns as speaker
Brandon Stephenson, a former Butler Eagle paperboy and 2004 Butler High School graduate, will be the keynote speaker for the 6th annual Celebration of Faith Service at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Butler High School auditorium.
The nondenominational service is to honor the Butler High School Class of 2015 and is open to family and friends of the graduates, as well as the community.
Shortly after graduating from Kentucky Christian University in 2009, Stephenson and his wife Danielle moved to Waukesha, Wis., where he began working at the RiverGlen Christian Church as its youth pastor.
Now the director of GroupLife and staff at RiverGlen, he said he was honored to be invited to participate.
“To be completely honest, if you were to tell me that I’d be asked to come back and speak at my high school, I would have laughed and probably thought you were crazy. But you know, I’ve come to believe that God opens doors that you never expected, and it’s probably a good idea to be faithful to him when he opens those doors,” said Stephenson.
He and his wife have a 3-year-old son, Noah, and are expecting their second child.
Stephenson’s parents still live in Butler, and his connection to North Street Christian Church remains strong with Pastor Bob Huber being Stephenson’s mentor for many years.
Stephenson eagerly accepted the opportunity to share his time and his knowledge with the graduating class of 2015.
“I worked with youth for almost a decade and I love having the opportunity to speak into their lives. Teenagers are smart, influential, and they are changing the world every day,” he said, noting students don’t always hear that message.
The theme for the event is called “Greater” and it is based on Philippians 3:8 where Paul says he considers everything else a loss compared with knowing Jesus.
“We spend our whole lives trying to be ‘great.’ We want to be great, but our definition of what is great can be skewed. Jesus changed that and Paul understood it. At the end of the day, the greatest thing we can do is to know and be known by Jesus,” said Stephenson.
All the effort and time people put into being great students or athletes are not as important as the main point of Stephenson’s address.
“Jesus is greater than anything this world has to offer, and when we place him in his rightful place in our lives, we then will make this world greater. Jesus just isn’t someone who has a place in our lives, he needs to be the greatest thing in our lives,” he said.
Having grown up in church, Stephenson came to faith at a young age and it’s always been a part of his life, but what he didn’t realize while attending school was there were many others who were just like him.
“It would have been a huge benefit for me to know how many of my peers were following Jesus just like me and figuring out how he impacts our lives while living this crazy time of being a teenager,” Stephenson said.
He credits events such as this one to bring believers all together. “Even though we all come from different churches and backgrounds, we all are on the same team, serving the same God, following the same Jesus.”
The woman behind the planning for this event is Butler resident Tammy Stauffer.
“The graduating seniors are stepping from one stage of their lives into another when they graduate and they need to hear about Jesus and the love he has for them,” said Stauffer.
The service is in its sixth year. More than 80 seniors attended last year with their family and friends. The event also features some praise and worship time.
“We will praise and worship God with the praise band, ‘Third From First.’ We also have seniors sharing their talents through song. Seniors will also be involved with the service introducing the keynote speaker, reading Scripture, welcoming everyone and also closing the service in prayer,” Stauffer explained.
