Last night in youth group we ate pizza, baked cookies, sang some Christmas hymns, prayed for one another, and spent some time reflecting on how to talk about Jesus with our friends!

The kitchen has become our default hangout now, in no small part to the presence of food every week, and it has been fantastic to see our students begin to form stronger relationships with their peers and the volunteers. After some quality time together Eli led us in some Christmas hymns, we took prayer requests and prayed for one another, and then we jumped right into one of the topics that was requested last week!

I started by asking students what they picture when they hear the words “share your faith.” Most students pictured something that looks like downtown outreach, or thought back to this past summer's trip to Myrtle beach. I think we all probably have different ideas of what sharing faith “should” look like, but I wanted to challenge the assumption that there was one “correct” way to share faith.

Most students were familiar with the idea of the Romans road, and how to lead someone who doesn't believe through the basic tenets of faith, but one student jumped 5 steps ahead of me and expressed how he didn't think making disciples was a one conversation kind of thing. We spent the next few minutes talking about what making disciples looks like in practice, the inherently relational nature of discipleship, and how sharing our faith is something that we should practice with other believers.

I’m afraid that much of the awkwardness we feel when we talk about sharing our faith is based on some assumption that it only “counts” if we are sharing with someone who has no faith at all. Jesus’ life models a more holistic view of evangelism and discipleship than I tend to picture. Jesus met people's physical needs, forgave them, called them to repentance and often - to follow him. It wasn’t a one-off conversation on a street corner, but an ongoing invitation to something greater.

As we wrapped up I went on a bit of a rant about how the word Gospel literally means good news, but it seems to lose its luster over time. We have heard that Jesus came to die for our sins countless times if we have grown up in the church, and the absolutely wonderful insanity of that message shouldn't lose its shine for us. The God of the universe looked through the scope of creation before the world even came to be and saw us, and while we were yet sinners and completely unworthy - took on flesh and lived and died to pay the price for sin that we could never pay ourselves. Not only did he justify us though, he also went and made us co-heirs with Jesus himself to the kingdom of Heaven and sent His spirit to dwell within us! This is an unthinkable grace! How have we let the good news become commonplace?! (I’m mostly preaching to myself here, but maybe you’re in the same boat.)

If the Gospel is good news, sharing it is almost natural. When we get good news, we share it with people! Overcoming the shame or the awkwardness of sharing Jesus isn’t so much about a tactic or a 12 step plan to get someone saved, but an overflowing of the good news we have already claimed for ourselves. We just need to be conscious of it :)

Next week we are having our year end Christmas party before taking a few weeks off for the holidays! Thanks as always for stopping by and checking in, have a wonderful week!

Happy Monday parents!

Last night in youth group the high schoolers ate some grilled cheese, prayed for one another, and spent our large group time brainstorming topics that they would like to cover and finishing up our conversation about doubt from two weeks ago!

One of the things I mentioned in the parent meeting was my desire to give high school students ownership of the program as much as possible. What that looks like in practice is using some of our time together to get their input and feedback on how things are going and the topics they would like to talk about! You can see a picture of the requested topics below.

After establishing that doubt is not sinful, and actually fairly common, we spent some time reflecting on how supporting one another through periods of doubt can actually be

We are still working to build trust and encourage open discussion, but I see more and more openness every week. As we head into the new year, I hope to keep trying to generate conversation between students as much as possible to break down the stigma surrounding talking about our faith openly. I’ll have a calendar together with those topics on the website by the end of the month :)

One of the other things we are throwing on the calendar is a weekly coffee time on Wednesdays from 3-4pm in the pit. Students are welcome to come to work on homework, prep for Wednesday night if they are volunteering that week, or simply hang out and drink coffee or hot chocolate! This is our first step toward building a stronger community, and will serve to be another entry point for the widest part of our funnel alongside monthly events! This is not obligatory and there won’t be any formal teaching, so no worries if your student can’t make it!

Next week we are going to talk about how to practically share Jesus (or faith in general) with our friends, and dodge some of the awkwardness that tends to go along with that before having our year end celebration on the 18th!

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