OK, I had a weird day. But it has ended exceedingly well.

The weird part of the day was meeting with this guy who showed up at our church Sunday morning. As I was clearing the sanctuary after church (shaking hands and kissing babies) this guy walked up and asked me if he could talk to me for a minute. Long story short, he was interested in applying here and wanted to get together. So today I drove down to where he lived and had lunch on his turf. It was a good meeting and I really liked him. But knowing how the process goes I’m not sure he’ll ever get talked to. A shame!

Tonight at LF we did our monthly concert of prayer. It went very well. LisaB led all of it. If I haven’t said this lately, that girl is growing! I don’t mean physically, she has matured spiritually a great deal in a short period of time. Of course she is still an adolescent and makes mistakes… but it is clear to see God working on her. The students really responded well to the COP. They happily participated and even each contributed well. Another area that I feel pretty good about is the attendence. We had a total of 135 people on Sunday at church… so I could expect about 13, right? Wrong… we had 35. That’s 26% of Sunday AM attendence. Too cool.

Here are some things I shared on the YS site that show how good I am feeling about life and ministry now.

– My Tuesday bible study group is going great! We just finished Daniel last week and it was incredible to see students really wrestle with those prophesies and learn to ask good text based Q’s.

– Youth group was fantastic tonight. 3 students completely led a concert of prayer and it was fantastic. I can’t even begin to describe how much one of my 11th grade students has grown in the past year. She led all of the prayer and contemplative stuff tonight. Wow. At the same time we are taking this big emotional step of introducing monthly COPs (3rd one) we’ve actually seen God use them. I’d forgotten how cool that is to see.

– My students are influencing their friends for Christ. We are equipping them with skills on how to introduce their friends to Christ through their testimonies… and they are actually doing it. We’re on the verge of a massive milestone of one of our students leading a peer to Christ.

– Even though our church is hemrogging adults (long story) the youth group is growing! That’s not supposed to happen.- An adult actually got up at a business meeting and nominated me to be the senior pastor. (We don’t have one now) Of course, I would never want that… but it was flattering and an powerful reflection of how God is using me to work here.

– My adult leaders are truly graspoing ahold of our vision. They are getting trained and are now asking hte right questions. Phew!- I help coach a HS golf team. Our season just ended and at our banquet students openly shared in front of their parents and their friends how much it meant to them that I’ve been a part of their lives and that I have had an impact in them maturing as young men. They even insisted that they have their pictures taken… in front of the church van they call “Big Sexy.”

Hope that paints a good picture for how good things are going.

For those who are careful observers of All Blogs Go To Heaven, you have noticed that while I did “preach” [I prefer teach] on Sunday morning I have yet to publish my transcripts. That is because the transcripts don’t exist. I had a very brief outline and just kind of “winged it.” This obviously isn’t my preferred method of instruction from God’s Word and I can cite specific places where I messed up, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. (I only practiced twice!)

For the record. I think I only looked at my notes 3 times during the 25 minute talk.

this is a fine example of the work of despair.com 

For those who aren’t familiar with what I am talking about. The concept of pacing in student ministry is championed in Richard Dunn’s book, Shaping the Spiritual Lives of Students. (You can buy it online at http://www.amazon.com.) It goes like this… In order to lead people and disciple them you only give them what they are ready to handle, walk along with them as they get it [pacing] and your job is to always throw out the next challenge.

I practice pacing in how I disciple students. I always challenge, occasionally give glimpses of the big picture, but empathize and walk beside mostly. It is helpful with “postmodern” students since they don’t feel like they are just another cog in a program. Formerly, “discipleship” had become such a program and so stringent and so impersonal, that it had become regulated to something people either chose to include in their program or didn’t. Like VBS or a ladies. You can either chose to disciple or you can chose not to.

My personal priority is to disciple people. To chose to not disciple is the choice of misrepresenting Christ’s command in the great commission. It’s not someone else’s job… It’s mine! It’s all believers.

But I am left to wrestle with “how do I go about the business of discipling students in a postmodern, hyperbusy world?” Pacing is a good way to do this because it is mostly about walking beside an individual vs. “come to my discipleship group on Thursday’s at 4 PM.” While this is comfortable for me and I think I am pretty good about keeping the pressure of pacing on… I wrestle with the reality of who I’m leaving behind. Jesus went after the few… But left many behind. But he was God… He had some clue as to who to choose and who not to choose. I don’t have that advantage and I choose to not pace some while I do pace others. How is this right?

My biggest fear [and a dose of reality] is that I am investing in the wrong student. The phone will ring in 2015 and some enthusiastic voice will tell me about how they have grown and they are a father and how awesome a youth pastor I was. The reality of this vision is that someone invested in me and learned from me but I didn’t invest in them. They didn’t ever hit my radar screen. Worse yet. The Sixth Sense haunts me with the reality that maybe their is a student who cried out to me and I missed it. Then one day, out of sheer rage, he will show up in my bathroom and shoot me.

A lesser fear is that I will not invest in a student and a vocal parent will get me fired. They will accuse me of being lazy since I technically could have invested in their child and choose not to. They will say, “you invested in these golf team students, who’s parents aren’t paying your salary, but you didn’t invest in my boy. Look at him, he’s a failure and it’s all your fault.”

So I am left with the same question I started with. Am I pacing with students or am I just lazy?

I haven’t been able to post for the past few days because things have been moving a little too fast.

My class at Huntington went pretty well. This is the first time I’ve had a full class, and there were some things I was impressed with and some things I was disappointed by. My biggest two beefs have been that the “pace of play” is way too slow for me in a Dave Rahn class. I’m learning from it, but I just wasn’t sure if he didn’t have enough material or if he really thought his group learning exercises really were more valuable than content. All in all there was about 1/2 to 1/3 the content of a similar class I took on the undergrad level. The other beef is that there was zero biblical content to our sessions. We never opened our bibles in the 4 days the class met. Nor did we pray together. That really saddened me.

Saturday I took 4 of my volunteers to a Sonlife Training session in Saginaw. This was about what I expected and wanted all wrapped into one offering. The adults got swarmed with the Sonlife philosophy and it fostered a lot of good discussion. I think it will help them really clearly see what their task is as well as what the goal of the youth group is. Too cool.

On Saturday night I got a call from our interim pastor to let me know he had the flu and wouldn’t be able to do the talk Sunday AM. This put me in quite a bind as it meant I had to do the talk and I couldn’t possibly prepare correctly. Essentially, I did a simple talk that exposed a ton from my family background and such. I tackled two essential questions that all believers need answered. Can God use me? And What is my job as a believer? It goes without saying that the audience got a heavy dose of the Sonlife philosophy.

Interestingly enough, I must have done OK since at the business meeting a little later someone made a motion that the church hire me as the next senior pastor! (One of the funniest moments of my career.) I knew that some people thought that was a good idea, so I got up and explained what my intentions were and what I sought to do with my life. The biggest thing I think I communicated in that one minute “speech” to answer the motion was that I want to be here to support the next SP.

After that I had to rush over to play in the golf teams final event. We had a 2 man scramble. I played with one of my sophomores and we had a good time. We triple bogied the 4th hole to open our day but managed to end up with 2 over par. Except for that one hole, we played pretty good. Not to toot my own horn, but I played pretty good and helped get our score respectable on a day when the wind and the temperature brought out some ugly scores.

At the little banquet, I really got to see clearly how God is using and will continue to use junior golf. Many of the students were very open and even a little emotional about expressing their gratitude to me. I was really touched by this. The bottom line is that I see it as an honor to work with these young men. I hope that they learn about the game and I hope they learn about life too. I think I’ve helped to accomplish that. At the end of the banquet the seniors dragged me into their pictures and even made sure to go out and get their picture taken with the van, Big Sexy.

What a ride!

With envy the youth worker learns of a place where students are extremely successful and excited about doing student ministry. He is rushed to study “How can I have a ministry like that?” Within each ministry it is assumed that student leadership is good and desirable. Student leadership is a commodity that each student ministry leader seems to chase after on some level. Whereas introductory questions between youth workers hover around the question, “How many students come to your program?” It is not too long before one leader shares with another, “I’ve got these three students, who are dedicated to the task and are influencing their friends.” For most this is seen as the ultimate status symbol of a holistic and thriving student ministry.

All over the country students are in positions of leadership. In some places these students in leadership are governed with strict guidelines, job descriptions, interviews, and on-going meetings with regular accountability. Student leadership in these places is defined and maintained within pre-defined boundaries. Measurably the participants contribute to the ministry. In other places the youth worker has put students in charge of task which make his overall ministry easier. While this person hopes that the student will benefit from the experience his primary objective is that the student will help the adult with the ministry task. Still other ministries seek to place students in roles of influencing their peers along the continuum of making a commitment to Christ. These adults invest in and equip students to minister to students. For them, success is tougher to gauge but the target is larger and the boundaries more opaque.

Often left out of this excitement over student leadership is the student leader himself. The danger is that the needs of the students are being overshadowed by the perceived need of the student to lead and serve the church. Adults seem quick to place adolescents in positions of leadership. With a ravenous appetite these students are challenged to commit, trained, and put into action. It doesn’t seems to matter whether the ministry is task-oriented, group-oriented, or evangelism oriented, as each type of leadership philosophy feeds off of one core ingredient, students.

Little time is taken to examine serious issues before these young people are put into positions of leadership and influence. The question is rarely should adolescents be put in leadership so much as is often argued when will they be put into leadership. While it is abundantly clear biblically and practically that students can be effective during adolescence, this is not the specific target of this exercise. This exercise seeks to introduce issues of appropriateness developmentally and psycho-socially that ought to be weighed when considering placing adolescents into student ministry leadership.

Issues Psycho-social appropriateness:

Students have been conditioned by their society to look for specific purpose and goals in their lives. In their educational background and through parental influence, children approach adolescence with in innate desire for direction. Certainly, the body of Christ is wise in standing up and proclaiming to Christian children, “We will provide that goal, direction, and purpose in your life. It is found in Jesus.” Duffy Robbins expands on our role and describes the youth worker as a nurturer. “We have not completed our task of nurture until we have challenged and equipped our students to give up their small ambitions for the sake of the gospel. (The Ministry of Nurturer, p. 217)

Youth ministry practice over the past several decades has proven that it is not only practically effective to place students in all levels of leadership, but it has also shown that it is appropriate sociologically for students to be expected to hold influence over their peers. They are natural communicators of God’s truth to their peers. They are native to the diverse environment of subcultures and each group’s unique mores. They are most apt to handle and thrive in these native cultures and can be extremely effective in ministering to their peers. With the case of adults attempting to do the same functions of leadership, it simple is not as effective culturally. There is a reality that they are overly mature for that social set and will always be looked at suspiciously and as an outsider. “Age may give persons and edge on maturity, but it is no guarantee. [For success] If we focus on adolescent’s spiritual and developmental and psychological maturity when we determine their readiness to assume their roles in the body of Christ, we will be on safe ground.” (Starting Right, p. 173)

It is therefore my contention that student leadership is completely appropriate sociologically for all students.

Issues of Developmental Appropriateness:

While it is clear that it is sociologically appropriate to train student leaders for all sorts of ministry, it is not as clear that it is developmentally appropriate for them. At least, not in the initial observation.

Going back about 90 years we can see that the church struggled to make sense of an emerging adolescence. Church leaders noted with great distress that fewer and fewer men were seeking to enter vocational or lay ministry. While they contemplated the many possible factors for this including economic realities, secular education, lack of faith, and fear it is clear that at that point in history the church was unable to cope with the changing needs of these young people. Instead of adapting their methods they insisted that this troublesome decrease was the result of sin somewhere. The author ends his frustration with, “They [pastors] should constitute all the louder summons to young men of power to give heed to the call of Christ.” (Future Leadership of the Church, p. 101)

Mott’s anguish was answered only a decade later. As serious study of the social sciences began to gain reputability amongst the masses, the church turned their attention to meeting the needs of this newly studied adolescent mind. The church not only took notice, but sought to change its methodology. By the mid-1920s churches realized that if they desired for Christ’s ministry to continue among these emerging adolescents, they would have to provide specialized training and programs to adolescents. “Outgrown religious, social, and educational machinery belongs on the ‘scrap heap’ or in a museum as certainly as antique industrial furnishings.” (Handbook for Workers with Young People, p. 76-77) (This sounds eerily similar to the cries of today’s post modern ministry thinkers!) Recognizing their failure, churches began instructing students in leadership skills. Topics were taught such as program development, choosing objectives, determining methods, and taking steps to deepen their knowledge of the Kingdom and God’s Word. (p. 79)

As the science of developmental study has progressed and uncovered new realities, student leadership has continually readjusted itself to remain appropriate. As adolescence has elongated from 3-4 years to its present 10-12 years, ministry leaders have had to readjust what they deem as appropriate. Currently, it is deemed appropriate to place students in leadership because it is seen as helping them grasp their role as they seek to become and individual unique from mom and dad. As they choose to identify with Christ, this step helps to solidify their unique personality. Identifying themselves with a task to do and a place to serve actually helps further clarify their role in the adult society they seek to enter. Erik Erikson says, “Our democracy must present the adolescent with ideals which can be shared by youths of many backgrounds and which emphasize autonomy in the form of independence and initiative in the form of enterprise. (Identity and the Life Cycle, p. 99) Certainly, a mix of an active growing life with Christ and faith put to action through student leadership more than adequately provides for this independence and initiative that Erikson prescribes.

This exercise merely touches on the two issues at hand. However, it is clear from both this brief study, study of Scripture, and present ministry practice that it is entirely appropriate developmentally and psycho-socially to place students in leadership. While this shouldn’t be done recklessly or without consideration for individual students maturity/immaturity and issues of personal holiness, students should be challenged to take on ministry as soon as possible. Paul writes, “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” (I Corinthians 12:7) This implies that all members of Christ’s church hold equal responsibility in the common good of the body. This has no age restriction and no experience restriction. Truly the only qualification for having responsibility is indwelling of the Spirit.

Works Cited

Dean, Kendra Creasy Starting Right Youth Specialties, 2001

Clark, Chap

Rahn, Dave

Erikson, Erik Identity and the Life Cycle Norton Press, 1980

Mott, John Future Leadership of the Church Association Press, 1915

Robbins, Duffy The Ministry of Nurture Youth Specialties, 1990

Thompson, James Handbook for Workers with Young People Abingdon Press, 1922

Huntington College, IN (on location!)

I arrived here at Huntington about 6 AM this morning. I am stinking dirty dog tired. I woke up at 2:45 AM and got ready to leave the house by 3:15 AM. Keep in mind that I didn’t make it to bed until after midnight because Kristen and I were wired… We were up talking about LF until then.

[By the way, LF went pretty well last night. I think we have an “official favorite game” of the group… Moose Moose.]

After I got on campus, I crawled to the back of the van and promptly fell asleep. Those two hours of winks are probably what kept me going all day. Class was fine. I can only say that I survived instead of enjoyed. Some days are just like that.

I have to finish a paper tonight that was technology due today but judgment was delayed until the morning since there were a few of us who haven’t gotten it done. I’ll post it when I’m done… I’m certain that all of blog reading America is waiting for what I think about Factors to Consider in Student Ministry! We also had a test today of the book, Dedication and Leadership. I managed to pull off a B even though I missed 33% of the questions. I had the lowest score in the class… But he didn’t anticipate anyone getting more than 50% correct anyway. So we all did better than expected.

It is weird having a new prof that you are unfamiliar with completely. Back at Moody I was well-aware of professors reputations before I registered for a class. At the very least I had heard of them from former students. In this case, Dave Rahn is a complete unknown to me. I’ll reserve what I think of him for a later date.

I’ll close with this: I must wrestle with the value of a graduate school education. Will the pain and suffering be worth it? I think I need to establish the worth of this endeavor if I am to continue.

This is an illustration that I’m using for a talk tonight. I thought it deserved it’s own post.

The Battle of the Deadline

A few years ago I had some students who decided they were going to go to war with me about deadlines.Every year, the youth group put on a huge gala banquet to honor the seniors as the graduated from high school. We rented out a banquet hall, had a catered dinner, had a fun presentation time where the seniors received gifts and “handed down their legacy” to the next year’s seniors, and spent the night in a really nice **** hotel. Everyone dressed up in their prom clothes and it was a big party that everyone wanted to be a part of.

Sounds like a lot of fun, right? And it was!

For me though, this thing was a logistical nightmare. I had to negotiate with the hotel for the rooms… we needed an entire floor of rooms and we needed to be away from the others guest since we made noise all night long. I had to take care of the caterer. I had to take care of transportation from the church to the hotel and back. I had to make sure gifts were bought for all the seniors and that they were funny but not inappropriate. I had to put together a presentation with pictures of them from 7-12 grade. I had to arrange for entertainment for them before the banquet… on and one and on.

All of these little details required that I know exactly who was going to be coming at least 2 weeks in advance. How else could I book the rooms? Arrange for transportation? Order food? Make sure gifts were funny? Get pictures together? Book entertainment?

So about 8 weeks before the event we started promoting this thing. I did for them what I do for you. I announced it up front. I sent home a postcard. I put it in the church bulletin. I put it on the youth group calendar. We had all of our leaders call and remind students to sign-up. And every time we talked about it we said… you must sign up for this by May 1st!

May 1st comes, 60 students sign up. I finalize numbers with the hotel, with the caterer… on and on.Then about a week later I start to get these phone calls. “I want to go.” “I didn’t know there was a deadline.” “I went last year and I want to go again, please!” So I was left with some choices. “How was I going to deal with those who ignored the deadline and still want to go when everything is booked? Should I lie to the hotel and just put these people in a room? Should I break my contracts and up my numbers? Should I have a waiting list?”I met with a couple of the other pastors at the church. Together we decided that those who ignored the deadline couldn’t go. They would be put on a waiting list and be allowed to go if someone else dropped out.Sounds good right? To those that were late in signing up I communicated what we had decided to do. We had about 20 adults who helped out with the youth group and we explained it to all of them… they all nodded their heads in agreement. So this took care of the problem, right? Wrong! This is when the whole thing blew up in our faces.

Little did I know that some leaders nodded their heads yes but said no in their hearts.

This is what happened. A student would come to me and say they wanted to go. I put them on the waiting list and told them it didn’t look good. Then they would complain to one of my leaders… who would tell them they could go!Within about 3 days this leader had guaranteed 15 students that they could go when in fact there was no way that they could attend. The hotel was full and that was final.Talk about a tough battle to fight! This was a no-win situation. This put me in a place where I lose no matter how I look at it. If I tell these new 15 students that they can go… I’ve just told the rest of the group that deadlines don’t matter. If I tell them they can’t go… my phone will light up like a Christmas tree. Parents will hate me, students will hate me, and this leader… who I love… will hate me. Mix in all of these contracts that I have a moral obligation to fulfill and I have a HUGE problem.But, this was a battle I chose to fight. I was determined to not bow to the pressure of parents, this leader, or the political storm that this erupted in the church. We had made the right decision and we were going to stick to our guns.

In the end, about half of the students who were on the waiting list got to go. Some people were mad at me… but it was the right decision. This was a battle I chose to fight, and I won.

At the end of chapter 5 King Balshazzar is killed and the Babylonian empire falls. Chapter 6 marks the beginning of the Persian Empire.

I. The plot devised against Daniel (1-9)

Read vs. 3-5



Who is Darius?

Who are the satraps, administrators, and Daniel?

They hate Daniel because he is doing such a good job. So they decide to come up with a plot to get rid of him.

Verse 7: “The royal administration [sic] have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next 30 days, except to you O king, shall be thrown into the lions’ den.

OK…. Did you see that? They took something that they knew was unique to Daniel and was key to his success, then decided to use it as a way to destroy him.

_____

Discussion question: What do we know about Daniel’s spiritual life?

What we know about Daniel’s prayer life (see v. 10)

1. Prayed toward Jerusalem

2. Prayed openly

3. Prayed and gave thanks to God

4. Prayed repeatedly, 3 times a day

______

What we have here is a decision. Daniel had to choose whether to take this challenge or not. He didn’t make the battle happen… but he had to choose how to respond to the battle that was brought to his doorstep.

Teaching point: This type of thing happens every day, doesn’t it? We can identify with what Daniel had to do because we face choices like this every day.

The rule:

Social rule – to tell on a friend or not?

School rule – to abide by a rule that everyone ignores

Family rule – to do your homework or not

Church rule – to bring your Bible or not

Work rule – to take a sick day when you aren’t sick

The reality is that we have lots and lots of opportunities for battles every day. We need to choose which battles are worth fighting and which are not.

You need to learn the right times to choose a battle and when to let some battles go.

The Battle of the Deadline



A few years ago I had some students who decided they were going to go to war with me about deadlines.

Every year, the youth group put on a huge gala banquet to honor the seniors as the graduated from high school. We rented out a banquet hall, had a catered dinner, had a fun presentation time where the seniors received gifts and “handed down their legacy” to the next year’s seniors, and spent the night in a really nice **** hotel. Everyone dressed up in their prom clothes and it was a big party that everyone wanted to be a part of.

Sounds like a lot of fun, right? And it was!

For me though, this thing was a logistical nightmare. I had to negotiate with the hotel for the rooms… we needed an entire floor of rooms and we needed to be away from the others guest since we made noise all night long. I had to take care of the caterer. I had to take care of transportation from the church to the hotel and back. I had to make sure gifts were bought for all the seniors and that they were funny but not inappropriate. I had to put together a presentation with pictures of them from 7-12 grade. I had to arrange for entertainment for them before the banquet… on and one and on.

All of these little details required that I know exactly who was going to be coming at least 2 weeks in advance. How else could I book the rooms? Arrange for transportation? Order food? Make sure gifts were funny? Get pictures together? Book entertainment?

So about 8 weeks before the event we started promoting this thing. I did for them what I do for you. I announced it up front. I sent home a postcard. I put it in the church bulletin. I put it on the youth group calendar. We had all of our leaders call and remind students to sign-up. And every time we talked about it we said… you must sign up for this by May 1st!

May 1st comes, 60 students sign up. I finalize numbers with the hotel, with the caterer… on and on.

Then about a week later I start to get these phone calls. “I want to go.” “I didn’t know there was a deadline.” “I went last year and I want to go again, please!” So I was left with some choices. “How was I going to deal with those who ignored the deadline and still want to go when everything is booked? Should I lie to the hotel and just put these people in a room? Should I break my contracts and up my numbers? Should I have a waiting list?”

I met with a couple of the other pastors at the church. Together we decided that those who ignored the deadline couldn’t go. They would be put on a waiting list and be allowed to go if someone else dropped out.

Sounds good right? To those that were late in signing up I communicated what we had decided to do. We had about 20 adults who helped out with the youth group and we explained it to all of them… they all nodded their heads in agreement. So this took care of the problem, right? Wrong! This is when the whole thing blew up in our faces.

Little did I know that some leaders nodded their heads yes but said no in their hearts.

This is what happened. A student would come to me and say they wanted to go. I put them on the waiting list and told them it didn’t look good. Then they would complain to one of my leaders… who would tell them they could go!

Within about 3 days this leader had guaranteed 15 students that they could go when in fact there was no way that they could attend. The hotel was full and that was final.

Talk about a tough battle to fight! This was a no-win situation. This put me in a place where I lose no matter how I look at it. If I tell these new 15 students that they can go… I’ve just told the rest of the group that deadlines don’t matter. If I tell them they can’t go… my phone will light up like a Christmas tree. Parents will hate me, students will hate me, and this leader… who I love… will hate me. Mix in all of these contracts that I have a moral obligation to fulfill and I have a HUGE problem.

But, this was a battle I chose to fight. I was determined to not bow to the pressure of parents, this leader, or the political storm that this erupted in the church. We had made the right decision and we were going to stick to our guns.

In the end, about half of the students who were on the waiting list got to go. Some people were mad at me… but it was the right decision. This was a battle I chose to fight, and I won.

II. Daniel is sent to the Lions Den



Let’s see what happens to Daniel when he decides to pick his battle.

Read vs. 13 – 18

– Daniel was in an impossible situation!

o No human had the power to help him.

o Not even the king could spare him.

o The lions den was secured with rocks and a seal

III. Daniel’s deliverance and testimony (19-22)



Read vs. 19-22

Darius Question: Will God really save Daniel?

Daniel’s answer: Yep

What does this story have to do with me?

This is a story about making the choice.

Daniel made a choice to pick this fight. It was the right fight at the right time. It was a fight that changed lives.

How did Daniel’s choice affect God’s plan?

Did Daniel have a choice? Absolutely. He chose to pray when he had been told not to pray.

What was the result? He was thrown in the lions den! He was left for dead.

But Daniel’s choice allowed God to do a miracle. If Daniel had chosen to not pray or had even tried to prove his innocence… this miracle would have never happened.

So right away… we can take from this a few things.

To choose to follow Christ is to choose a life of suffering

LIE: To follow Christ means that your life is going to be a piece of cake.

TRUTH: Jesus tells believers that if we identify ourselves with him, we will suffer. (John 15:18-19)

When we choose to follow Christ recklessly… it allows God to do miraculous things.



LIE: If we do reckless things, God is obligated to do a miracle.

TRUTH: When we have faith in Christ, God can work with that. (Matthew 17:21)

Here’s what we have for you to do next…

You have to make the choice to follow Christ. We all nod our heads in agreement when we look at our mission, we all wrote down our circles and our squares, we all seemed to want to take the challenge to start getting to know our friends in deeper ways.

Are you ready to take the challenge and make a first step?

Get into your small groups and identify what your first step will be.



PRAY