Taking Questions from Students

I was just cleaning up some files on my computer, and I came across a list of questions from our 5th and 6th graders in the fall of 2007. It's interesting to see what was on their hearts and minds, even at that age.

• How could God have Jesus as a son if He didn’t have a wife?
• I want to be able to make sure that if I die now I will be saved. I want to say the prayer but not in front of all the 5th and 6th graders.
• Did or do you have/had concerns of death?
• Can we play ping pong?
• How did they come up with the name “Jesus?”
• What is your favorite Bible story and why do you like it?
• How did God make us?
• Does God love the devil?
• Do you believe there is a path to heaven and hell?

This is a great exercise to do with your students- we always hand out index cards and let them go to town with as many questions as they want. Not only does it help you see what topics to hit on, but it also helps you see where your students are at in life.

Our younger students seem to respond to this activity better than our older students. With the high schoolers, we do something called "Elephant in the Church" and we throw out hot button issues [gay marriage, slavery, abortion, war, materialism, world religions vs. Christianity, murder, etc.] and let them wrestle through a discussion about it. I always have my Bible, Counseling Teens in Crisis book [by Parrott], laptop, and a list of what the United Methodist Church's standpoint is on each topic. It's a great activity, but you have to make sure you've got a certain level of trust built up so students can speak freely. I remember the first time we did it, we got into murder/capital punishment and a student said, "If someone came after my family and killed them, I'd want to kill them for doing it. I wouldn't be able to trust the courts to deal with it appropriately." You have to provide a safe space for comments like that, because guaranteed, they'll come up.

Our kids have amazing minds that are constantly wrestling through all kinds of issues. What better place for them to do this than at the church, where not only can they explore the topic, but they can also dig into the theological side of it all.

Passion

Next Sunday, we're talking about Passion in HSM, and I've been thinking about it a lot today as I started some message prep. Two things stuck out to me:

John 2:15-17: "Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables. Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” Then his disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: 'Passion for God’s house will consume me'."

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The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering– physical, spiritual, and mental– of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion.

Christ was passionate about God's people. The scripture above has a lot of layers in it that can easily go unnoticed. All of these salesmen had set up shop in the temple, each one claiming his sheep or doves or whatever were better than the next, and therefore would be a more pleasing sacrifice to atone for the buyer's sins. Instead of the sinner sacrificing his best livestock, he could purchase what he needed at the temple and offer it as a sacrifice. The whole concept became twisted and morally corrupt, when it should have been drawing people closer to God. It ruined the idea of sacrifice, it tainted God's beautiful gift of redemption. It made Jesus angry, and He reacted.

His passion for God's church consumed Him. It fueled every action, every thought, every use of His resources. It was His filter for every word that passed over His lips, and it was the driving force behind His journey to Calvary. "The Passion" is a term that has been around forever, and more recently, associated with the film, but have we ever stopped to realize what that exactly means? Jesus Christ, beaten, exhausted, and standing alone as his friends watched from the back of the crowd, all for His passion.

Are we that passionate about Him? Are we that passionate about anything? Does anything drive us as much as Christ's love for God's people fueled Him?

Link Love: Posts worth a read

I don't know if it's due to excitement over the new school year or what, but there have been some solid articles and blog posts that have popped up over the last two weeks or so. I keep meaning to compile a list, and since I'm waiting on a turkey to cook [yeah, there's a project], I figured there's no better time than the present.

I've included a snippet from each that really connected with me. These have really got me thinking about the hows and whys behind the way I run my program.

CNN: More teens becoming 'fake' Christians

She says parents who perform one act of radical faith in front of their children convey more than a multitude of sermons and mission trips... But it's not enough to be radical -- parents must explain "this is how Christians live," she says. "If you don't say you're doing it because of your faith, kids are going to say my parents are really nice people," Dean says.

DC Curry: How do we draw Millennials to church?

...Younger generations are growing up POST-Civil Rights Movement. Without US History classes in school most would have NO concept of pre-civil rights way of living. This gen isn’t afraid of other cultures and as a whole, they embrace it.

Adam McLane: When did ministry become an office job?

...Compare the hours per week that your own church spends in the office vs. the amount of time the New Testament church did. They didn’t even have an office! So it was 0%. The biblical model is 0%. God’s Word is true, right? God is unchanging and unchangeable? ...How can we justify 50%, 75%, or 90% of our hours doing office work?

Geoff Cocanower: I almost chickened out

Okay, I'm not going to put a quote from this because I don't want to give away the light-bulb-over-the-head moment. But this REALLY hit home with me, and is definitely worth the read for anyone working with teens in a church setting.

Weekend Wrap Up: Week 1

Date: Aug. 29, 2010
Audience: Junior and Senior High
Topic: Live Large, Be Different, Shine Bright
Scripture: Romans 12:1-2 [The Message]

We had a HUGE group last night [around 30- three junior high, the rest senior high], which made the night a little crazy, but also gave it that Kick Off feel. It definitely showed that a) i need to recruit more volunteers, and b) we definitely have some spacing issues.

We started off with a new game- Ping Pong launch. Split the kids in 2 teams, and have them shoot ping pong balls with spoons at juice pitchers. The teal team had 44, and the green team had 19, but the best part was seeing 200 ping pong balls flying through the air all at the same time. My prediction: these ping pong balls will last til Christmas :) Our youth room is a black hole for ping pong balls.

The message and the scripture connected together really well. Romans 12:1-2 is a verse my kids are pretty familiar with, so I mixed it up and read it from "The Message." We talked about how they can make brand new choices this school year- that their decisions will affect the outcome of their lives, and only they can make those decisions. I challenged them to Live Large, Be Different, and Shine Bright- to accept the abundant life Jesus has for us, to choose who they follow, and to work together to light up their world.

One key thing I'm trying to do this year is build into the idea that youth group is a safe place to open up about the tough stuff. We talked about how sometimes we get in situations where we feel like our flame for Christ is barely a flicker, struggling to stay lit. In those moments, we need to find the "floodlights" and come at it from a community standpoint. If I've got a flicker and Lucy's a floodlight for Jesus, her light will help shine in the dark spots that mine is too weak to reach. God designed us that way- we're the BODY of Christ, not the BODIES of Christ.

For some reason, we whizzed through everything, so the kids were stoked that there was time for Booty Ball at the end. Everyone stands in a circle with their legs shoulder-width apart, and you try to roll a ball through each other's legs. If it goes through your legs once, you have to turn around and play backwards. If it goes through again, you're out. High intensity game, especially with a large group.

Overall, I'm pleased with how things went- tweaking the schedule a little for next week to add some small group time at the end. We also handed out surveys re: our programming [Sunday School, Youth Group, overall] because we're trying to beef it up this year. I'm excited to see what our students come up with.

Great Media on Digital Harassment

This video played during "If you really knew me" on MTV tonight- it's from www.athinline.org. A great resource for youth workers and teens.