With devotion to God and a desire to share the gospel with others, senior Tyler Graves believes that everyone serves a purpose. Graves finds it important to reach out to people, because he remembers the impact that it had on him when others stepped forward and helped him.
Graves’ youth pastors, Tommy and Jasmine Marciniak, Devin and Kayla Yount, Caleb and Kaitlyn Milam, and Zach and Carrie Marin from his current church, New Life Saline, and Spencer Chastain and Wesley Russle from his past church, Hurricane Lake Baptist, all encouraged him to step up and speak out about his faith, despite mistakes he made in life.
“[They taught me] that I can lead other people to Christ,” Graves said. “Even people in the Bible, such as disciples, made mistakes.”
Graves’ pastors reassured him that no matter what, God forgives him, and he can use his faith to encourage others as well.  Graves then opened up about his faith by giving his testimony at church in front of a sanctuary full of teenagers.
“It’s difficult to give your testimony in front of a big crowd,” Graves said. “I knew there were going to be people there that I was going to see in the hallways [at school] that could be like, ‘He did all these things in his past, but you’re going to let him get up there in front of all of us and give his testimony?’”
Graves has decided to devote his entire life to God and hopes that others will understand that they can be forgiven and used by God too.  In the future, he wants to attend seminary in order to become a youth pastor himself.
“There’s a lot of people who are lost, and I don’t want to be the reason that someone doesn’t find God,” Graves said.