Happy Halloween parents!

Last night in youth group we ate pizza, worshiped together, prayed for one another, and dove into the question “Is Jesus really the only way to God?”

Our students live in a world full of mixed opinions on faith, especially when it comes to what someone needs to believe to be saved. When we say that Jesus is the only way to heaven, there are many people who hear “your religion is wrong, you are wrong, I am right, convert or burn.” Finding a way to maintain the Bible as our standard of truth, communicate the Gospel as good news, and not cause people to be defensive or offended is hard!

One of the major goals in the conversations we have is helping students understand why they believe what they believe. I want them to be able to articulate why they affirm that Jesus is the only way to heaven outside of pastors, parents, or other mentors having told them that was true. There will inevitably be a time where our students have to face someone in their lives who believes differently, and knowing why they believe something for themselves is of utmost importance.

We had some good conversations about Mormonism, Judaism, Buddhism and all the things that they believe about who Jesus was before we ran out of time for the evening. I challenged students to think about why they believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven this week, and whether or not they believe that Christians who hold to that belief are “narrow-minded.” Obviously, we believe that scripture outlines very clearly that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus, but helping students examine and even embrace some of their doubts about this belief allows us to work through those doubts in a supportive and safe setting.

I’m excited to continue this conversation next week!

Thanks for checking in, and have a wonderful first week of November!

Last week our high schoolers requested mac n’ cheese and apple cider slushies, so this week we had both! After some quality hang out time, we took prayer requests and spent some time praying for one another. I can’t tell you how proud I am to see your kids praying corporately for each other. Each week it feels more natural and students are more willing to pray and share deeper requests.

As someone who deeply values community and giving ownership to the high school students in particular, I began the night by asking if there were any “big” questions they wanted to talk about that our book didn’t cover. A few weeks ago there was an excellent conversation about swearing, and it came back up last night. So we spent the majority of our time together discussing what swearing was, the strange nature of language as attributed meaning, and what the Bible has to say about it.

I think we eventually settled on swearing being defined as strong, impolite language. We made a distinction between taking the Lord’s name in vain and swearing, with the former being the more serious of the two. We reflected on Eph. 4, and some of the things we talked about last week in our conversation on taming the tongue. Much of the language we use regularly might not be considered “swearing” in our culture, but it probably qualifies as "unwholesome talk that tears others down." In the same way, there are some strange ways I have experienced students swearing at me in wholesome ways. I had a student in Chicago named Damien that once said, “Noah, you’re the s#!&.” While that was definitely strong and impolite, what he meant with those words was actually wholesome and uplifting.

I made sure to clarify that I’m not advocating for swearing in any context though. I do think that we are called to be in the world, but not of it, so when I responded to Damien, I just said “You’re pretty awesome too.” I took what he meant behind those words without offense, and I upheld my moral beliefs without responding in kind.

This led to what I would consider the most vulnerable conversation we have had yet, even though it was a bit of a rabbit trail. One student admitted that they felt stuck between two friends, one who believed that tattoos were sinful, and another who didn’t. The friend that believed they were sinful was encouraging this student that it was their job to go and convince the other that they were sinful.

Regardless of the topic, this kind of tension feels so common in our culture. Christians who believe one way silo themselves and pit themselves against Christians who believe differently, and mudslinging ensues. I’ve been wrestling personally with the idea that Christians are called or directed in Scripture to change each others minds about things like tattoos, methodology of baptism (infant vs believer, immersion vs sprinkling, etc.), or worship style. I’m not sure that any of those things are so important that a difference in belief would warrant chastising or excluding a brother or sister in Christ over them. If the crux of the disagreement was something like “Jesus did not bodily rise,” or “Jesus was not fully God,” I would see it way differently, but I wonder if the culture our students are growing up in now is similar to some of the behavior we see in the Pharisees.

I’m always struck by Jesus’ response to known sinners in the Bible, and how we seem to miss that mark in our treatment of people we deem sinners. He demonstrates a pattern of “love first, give grace, and call them to repentance and a changed life.” We seem to reverse that order, and require a changed life to give grace, and love follows after they meet our self-imposed criteria for holiness.

So what started as a simple question about swearing and tattoos turned into an excellent discussion of how we interact with one another, how Jesus approached sinners and what He requires of His followers. What a wild ride :)

Next week in youth group we return to our series in James to talk about fighting for peace!

If you made it through that giant wall of text, thanks! I’m so grateful to be walking alongside you and your students as we pursue Jesus together. Have a wonderful, restful week!

Happy Monday friends!

Last night in youth group we defused some bombs, worshipped together, took prayer requests and prayed for one another, and spent some time talking about the importance of taming our tongues!

Defusing bombs sounds much more serious than it really was. One of my favorite party games to play with youth groups is "Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes." Its a game where one person is the "bomb defuser" and a group of people nearby called "bomb experts" use a manual to tell the defuser what to do to defuse the bomb! It's a game that requires clear communication and teamwork under pressure, and that fit in really well with our lesson for the evening! If you want to see the game in action, this is a great video!

After grabbing some snacks, Eli led us in a time of worship, and we settled down to continue our conversation on the book of James. We were in chapter 3 this week, and spent some time reflecting on how James describes our tongues. He calls them "a world of evil, set on fire by Hell," which can sound a bit extreme until you consider the lasting impact that our words can have. I shared briefly about times that people said both positive and negative things to me that have stuck with me for many years. Most students had similar experiences and could relate.

One of the most unique opportunities given to us as followers of Jesus is the power to bless others, and call forth their true identities as God's beloved children. To drive that point home, I spent some time reading a portion of Henri Nouwen's The Life of the Beloved. If you are unfamiliar with who Henri is, he was a Dutch priest who spent much of his adult life teaching in the divinity school of Harvard, Yale, and Notre Dame before spending the last 10 years of his life in a community of adults living with disabilities. I like to joke that Henri is my spiritual father, as his writing has been incredibly influential in my life. 

In the chapter called "Blessed" Henri reflects on a time when a woman in his community named Janet approached him and asked for a blessing. Being a priest, he responded in a somewhat automatic way by tracing the sign of the cross on her forehead, but she protested saying, "No! That doesn't work. I want a real blessing!" So later that evening in a prayer service, Henri invited Janet to come and receive her blessing. He wasn't sure what she wanted, but Janet didn't leave him wondering for long. She left her place in the circle and buried her face in Henri's chest with a hug. As he embraced her, he said,

These kinds of blessings are SO powerful. They remind us that we are not our own, and even in the midst of all the struggles of life - God is with us.

I ended the night by encouraging students to be mindful of the way that they speak to the people they come into contact with this week, and try to intentionally bless one person every day.

Next week we will return to our "Can I Ask That?" series, and talk about why we can trust the Bible!

Have a wonderful week, and thanks for checking in!

Happy Monday!

Last night in D-Groups we spent some time hanging out, praying with and for one another, and then I gave your students the option between continuing our conversation from Can I Ask That, or spending some time defining ourselves as a group - what we value, who we want to be, and how we want to operate. They chose the latter, so we spent almost 40 minutes talking and writing down all the things that we want to embody as a high school youth group.

One of my biggest hopes and dreams for our youth (and specifically our high school youth) is that they begin to embody a Christ-centered community here. Especially given our current post-COVID, ultra-divided reality, it feels like many students are craving a place to belong without expectations. If our youth group can be a place that they feel they belong, as well as a place that they are developing spiritually, all the better! Luckily, they value that as well! 

Here's a picture of what we eventually came up with at the end of the night. Apologies in advance for the miserable handwriting :)

There are a few things that need additional context there, so I'll try to break them down quickly here!

We value becoming a welcoming, authentic, trustworthy, and faith-based community of people.

We love the 20 minutes of "chill" downtime at the beginning of programs designed to foster the development of the community we long for. We feel like there is a solid core of students who enjoy laughing together and diving deeper -  especially in small group formats.

We don't love that there is still a hesitancy to share in discussion, that Noah uses big words (mostly theological terms), and we want to stay away from lecture-based teaching because it reminds us of school. We would prefer to have flexibility in how long we discuss as a large group, some weeks we might have excellent conversation for 40 minutes, others it might only be 15. We would prefer a bit of an on-ramp to some of the more difficult topics we want to cover, instead of getting a "spiritual 2x4 to the face."

We feel like some things are missing....like really good food and pop. Also, for some of us it might be nice to have a bit of a break in the middle of teaching to give some time to process.

Annnnd the entire confused section is made up of inside jokes about the apparently high cost of moving horses from place to place! last week I was talking with a group of students and overheard the phrase "it's cheaper if you sedate them," and the rest is history!

Moving forward I want to keep giving as much agency as possible to our students where appropriate, and have them speak into things like the topics we cover, the trips we take, and the activities we plan outside of programming. I have so much hope for where we are headed, and I would love your prayers as we head there!

Next week we will be talking about taming the tongue, and the importance of blessing one another!

Thanks for stopping by to check in, have a wonderful week!

This past Sunday was great!

We discovered that we have a working slushie machine, played some Crossnet, spent some time in prayer, read some Max Lucado, and had some great debrief group conversations.

For our lesson time, we are continuing to work through the book of James and spent some time in chapter 2 this week talking about how Jesus doesn't play favorites. We made a distinction between having favorite people (like best friends) and playing favorites (which excludes others, and is hurtful.) James uses the analogy of a rich man and a poor man in his letter but if the Bible were written for a modern audience, that distinction would probably be more like cool vs. uncool, or popular vs. unpopular.

One of my favorite things to do as a youth pastor is go "back to the basics" of spiritual living, as it's easy to miss the forest for the trees in faith. One of the ways I love to do that is reading older students Max Lucado's children's books! So to drive the point home, I read You are Special to our students.

If you're unfamiliar with this story, it follows the life of a wooden person named Punchinello. I threw a quick summary at the bottom of this post if you're interested in that :) Just hit "Read More" under the pictures to reveal it.

While people don't go around sticking visible signs of approval or disapproval on one another, we live in a world of likes, hearts, and comments of disagreement. If we are going to be radical followers of Jesus we need to recognize that all people are made in God's image, and treat them as such.

Our debrief groups went well, and I'm working to get a group chat together to keep fostering the community that is already growing here! Next week in D-groups we are going to keep diving into discussion about whether or not we can trust the Bible! (of course we can, we just need our students to know WHY) :)

Thanks for stopping by and checking in! Have a wonderful week!