As youth pastor at the Light Church in Wellsville, Justin Lewis always wants to teach young people in the community about good morals and values and how to respect people.

So he came up with the idea of having an event called Youth In The Outfield, which was to reach out to children and instruct them on Godly characteristics that will help them change their lives for the better. It was held for 10 hours on Aug. 28 at the Wellsville Kiwanis Ballfield.

“We just wanted to send kids out here pumped up with positive energy and teach them about Jesus and let them have fun at the same time,” Lewis said.

Youth In the Outfield included games, food, crafts and music. During the evening, it had several speakers, including Lewis, Light Church pastor John Foster and Mike Butler, who is the pastor at Rising Sun Baptist Church in Edgewood, located in Pike County. The event, which began at noon, ended with a live Christian rock concert.

“We were very blessed by the weather,” Lewis said. “It was a little warm, but we’re very happy. It’s a lot better than the pouring rain.”

A Middletown resident, Lewis graduated from Wellsville-Middletown High School in 2010. He works on a farm and owns a lawn care business.

Lewis said he came up with the idea of having Youth In The Outfield while working on the farm earlier in the year.

“I sat on a tractor, I was going across the field and I was praying,” Lewis said. “God showed it to me that this was what I needed to do. I just started praying about it. I was like, ‘Lord, what do you want me to do?’ He confirmed to me time after time on how the event would be set up. It’s been God working the whole time for it.”

Lewis said he started planning for the event in May.

“The community has been very good to us,” the youth pastor said. “We had multiple donations from local businesses and individuals. Everybody has been more than willing to help the whole time.”

Lewis started his youth ministry in November 2020. Youth services are held at 7 p.m. every Thursday at the Light Church, which holds its regular services every Saturday night.

“Our church is somewhat new to the town of Wellsville,” Lewis said. “We’ve been here for a couple of years now. We want to bring new life to Wellsville, bring some life changing events into town and get some things happening.”

Lewis said he was glad that Youth In The Outfield was held after the first week of school.

“We did that on purpose just for the reason that we wanted to tell our youth kids about it and get the word out,” Lewis said. “We wanted the kids to talk about it at school for a week before the event. That would help get the word out to the other kids.”