I remember the day I met Drew Hildenbrand like it was yesterday. I had been saved a few days before (June of 2010). Jeremy and I (one of my oldest friends and the person most instrumental in my conversion) were walking through Brownsburg talking about Jesus with anyone who would listen. Then out of this little alley comes a minivan, seated in the drivers seat was Drew, 31 years old and just the most “youth pastor” looking dude I’d ever seen… given that Jeremy was carrying an 8 foot cross on his back… Drew had questions. We talked for about 10 or 15 minutes and he heard my story and Jeremy’s. He invited us to come to Church @ Main the following Sunday morning and speak to the high school kids he pastored (WILD move in retrospect considering he barely knew us. I mean we could’ve said literally anything in there). We accepted the invite. And thus began 2 years of some very intense discipleship. This is how I met my first real mentor.
The very first time Drew and I sat down in his office I knew there was going to be something different about this. His tone was serious. He never broke eye contact. He sat behind an open Bible (the very Bible he would later pass on to me that I still use to this day) and told me… “Shane, we have an opportunity to do something real here. And I’m in if you’re in, but I need to know that you’re really truly in“. I wasn’t sure that I knew what he meant and I told him so. So he explained… “The only way to get to Godliness is through all your junk. Which means if you’re going to sit in this room with me every week and ask me to counsel and teach you, you’re not going to be permitted to hold anything back from me”… Nobody in church had ever been so direct with me so immediately. The idea that I wouldn’t even have the option to be guarded was terrifying to me. At that moment I realized my entire 21 years had been lived never really being completely honest with anybody. Everyone I knew only knew the version of me I wanted them to see. And Drew wasn’t about to tolerate any of that nonsense.
I actually had to go outside and smoke a cigarette (a habit I would kick 11 years later), I needed to really think about whether I wanted to do this or not. I could tell there was something different about Drew and what he intended for our time together, the road ahead looked scary. But I was SO compelled by and drawn to him. There was something of him that I wanted to rub off on me. And for the first time I got my head around the idea that maybe, JUST maybe, there was something to be gained from being truly known.
So… I went back into his office… Sat back down…. Looked him in his face and said…. “Drew, I’m in”.
For two incredible years I sat with Drew almost every week and let him speak into my life. I let him tell me what to do, what to read, I got permission from him before I started dating again, we sat together in church, we ate meals together…He counselled me through reconciling with my Dad, He never once stopped trying with me. I was not then (and probably am not now) a particularly easy person to mentor. Even less easy to love. But what Drew saw when he looked at me was not a ‘project’ or a job. He saw me as a hurting and very messy brother in Christ. He saw an opportunity to step into a difficult space and love me like Jesus loves him… unconditionally.
Near the end of 2012 I began a relationship with a girl that Drew warned me strongly against. I didn’t take his advice and the relationship he and I had changed. For a while he just kind of kept me at arms length. The air between us was thick and full of tension. I had convinced myself that what I was getting into was permissible (not ‘right’, a very important distinction) and when I had made it clear that I intended to pursue this relationship even to the point of living in sin… Drew did something that, in hindsight… must’ve felt absolutely impossible and heart wrenching at the time, but was 100% right. He called me one last time to plead with me to do the right thing, and then he said “Shane, if you’re going to do this than I’m going to have to ask you not to call yourself a Christian”. It felt like someone had punched me in my soul. And after that Drew just let me go. He let me chase what I wanted more than I wanted God. 4 years later it all came crashing down and I still remember thinking…”I should’ve listened to him, WHY didn’t I listen to him?”.
I can say pretty definitively that I would not be who I am today if it hadn’t been for the years i got to spend with Drew. His unrelenting faithfulness in the face of my inexhaustible foolishness must have been so wearisome for him at times. To watch me trail off onto the heavily trodden path of pride and self-indulgence again and again and again. To put his arm around me and invite me to sit with him when I showed up for Church one Sunday still a little drunk from the night before could NOT have been comfortable. He must’ve been SO tempted to frustration and discouragement when I would take 2 steps forward and 7 steps back… But as long as I was striving for faithfulness, he absolutely refused to leave me and watch me die. I cannot help but wonder what it’s like for him to watch my life now? Now that we’re both far on the other side of our time in the fray together. I pray that he sees the juice as being well worth the squeeze.
Drew is a constant presence in my mind. Rarely does a day go by when I don’t hear him in my inner dialogue reminding me to be careful what I’m looking for, and that I will always have much more to be humble about than I do to be proud of. And largely because of the impact he had on my life… one thing I am always looking for are young men who are like I was at that stage in my life. Foolish, arrogant, ferocious, but starving for more of Jesus. So that I can sit across from them, look them in the face, and tell them … “The only way to get to Godliness is through all your junk. Which means if you’re going to sit in this room with me every week and ask me to counsel and teach you, you’re not going to be permitted to hold anything back from me”…
One last note on Drew… He’s still doing the same thing today. Young men like Matt Mugumya who is now a pastor himself (and who KNOWS how many countless others over the years)Luke, and Rashad are over there at Church @ Main sitting humbly at his feet and learning how to be disciple makers. So you see how this works? Because 12 years ago, a ~relatively new to ministry~ youth pastor obeyed the promptings of the spirit and struck up a conversation with a lunatic with a cross on his back (I cringe HARD at that now)… I (a humble ape) am writing to you as well as mentoring other believers on the topic of Christian discipleship. Isn’t that bananas??? This is the fruitful harvest available to you if you are willing to take the risk that Drew and I took and commit to being known deeply. Oh and BTW… This past Sunday (9/19/22) my oldest son Roman made a profession of faith and took communion with me for the first time…. in the sanctuary of Drew’s church. How amazing is that? What an extraordinary gift. I have so much to thank Drew Hildenbrand for I could fill pages. But I’m most thankful for his ferocious commitment to care for me on God’s terms and not on his own. And as I have struggled to be known more and more in my walk with Jesus, I count it one of the great honors of my life to have been so well loved… despite being so well known… by someone like Drew Hildenbrand.
Faithfully Sanctified 