The church recently hired a new middle school, high school and college leader named Sam Romine to teach and inspire the youth of Lifepoint Church and the community.
“I played a lot of sports when I was a kid,” said Sam Romine. “I went to a Christian high school and middle school. I went to a really small school growing up. My mom taught there. I ended up playing mostly golf in high school. That became my main sport.”
Romine eventually found his way to Mount Vernon through his love of golf and through what Romine describes as a calling from God.
“My senior year of high school, the golf coach for the Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Coach (Mike) King, he contacted me and offered me a scholarship,” said Romine. “That’s how I came to Mount Vernon. I’ve been here ever since.”
Romine truly believes that he was called to serve the community of Mount Vernon and be a messenger of Christ here. Romine felt as if the community of Mount Vernon was the place where God was calling him to go to college and start his career.
“It felt like a calling,” said Romine on how he found the Mount Vernon community. “I wanted to go to a Christian school, I wanted to have my major, I wanted to play golf. Those were kind of my three criteria. I also needed a college that was affordable. College is expensive. I was looking into other colleges and out of the blue Coach King from MVNU called me when I was getting ready to make a decision about a couple of other colleges. I had never heard of Mount Vernon, Ohio, or Mount Vernon Nazarene University. It definitely felt like it was God leading me. It was definitely His calling. If I hadn’t gotten that phone call, things probably wouldn’t have worked out like this for me.”
Romine ended up switching vocations after college in order to adapt to what he says God was truly calling him to do. He ended up not going into education, which was his major, and he ended up becoming a youth pastor instead.
“I didn’t always want to be a youth pastor,” said Romine. “My major is actually education. I wanted to go into teaching.”
“The last two years I was open to going into ministry, but I wasn’t sure how that would happen because it wasn’t my major or what I studied,” said Romine. “I prayed a lot that God would open and shut the right doors and when I graduated, Lifepoint called and I had been going there for five years. A position opened up, I went through the interview process, and here I am.”
Lifepoint was looking for a youth pastor who not only had a profound relationship to Jesus Christ, but also someone who would be able to connect students with Christ as well. Romine’s background in sports and education were also helpful aspects of his experience that came into play when interviewing for the youth pastor job.
“They wanted to find someone who was growing in their relationship with the Lord and who viewed their relationship with the Lord as the most important thing in their lives,” said Romine. “They were looking for someone who was personally connected with Christ. I oversee the middle school, high school and college ministries. My main job is to connect students to the Lord and connect them to each other. Having a teaching background, a background in sports, and graduating from MVNU gives me a lot of experience for this position.”
The main group for local middle school and high school students is the group that the church has on Sunday nights for students regardless of if their families go to Lifepoint Church or not.
“We have our student group every Sunday at 6:30 p.m. at the church for any middle school and high school students,” said Romine. “We play games, have our time to hang out, and we’ll have a teaching time. We also have events that take place outside in the community as well.”
Romine has very high hopes for the youth programs at Lifepoint Church. He hopes to help grow the program and help nurture the spiritual lives of the students.
“My goal is to grow the program that we have in terms of both the number of students that we have attend the program and in terms of the spiritual health and growth of each member,” said Romine. “We want to equip our students for the real world and for when they go to college and have a career. We want our students to live for Christ.”