Last Friday, I wrote an email to our prayer partners to ask that they pray for the youth ministry students as they go to a public middle school to minister. Unfortunately, that event was postponed. We didn’t go on Friday. That’s why you haven’t heard anything about it.
However, today, we will be going to the school (at 3 pm our time). If you pray, please pray for us as we minister to these middle school students, beginning what I hope will be a great relationship with them and the school administration.
Today, I led chapel along with the youth ministry students for the first day of youth emphasis week. We did a Bible study on the life of Joseph, which included an object lesson with tiles, a hammer, glue, and other things.
Basically, we talked about problems that young people have in their lives (losing a loved one, divorce of their parents, discrimination, etc). Each person had a tile on which they wrote problems that young people could have. Then we took a hammer and broke the tiles, talking about how problems in our lives can break us. We then took the pieces and made mosaics out of them, talking about how God takes our broken lives and makes something beautiful out of them.
I think it’s worth mentioning that the pieces still remain, even though God constructs something beautiful out of them. I am in no way saying that our hurts and problems will always be ironed out and that we will live perfect lives. What I am saying is that God wants to transform the horrible things that happen to us into something good, and that we as the church need to come alongside broken people to help them during their crisis. Then, we can see the beauty of God’s restoration and healing, and we will be doing what God calls the church to do.
Click here to see a slideshow of the mosaics each group made.
Today is the first day of Youth Emphasis Week at the seminary. We’ve got some good stuff planned for the week. I’ll let you in on it later.
One of my students is the middle school pastor of his church. In January, he told me that his group has doubled in growth since he began taking classes in youth ministry. They have gone from 30 students to 60 in a little more than a year. He has continually told me how much of an impact the classes have made on his ministry.
Not only is the youth group growing, but they are also doing a lot of great things. A group of students recently started a mission church. They do everything to lead the mission in another part of town. This kind of stuff makes it easier to get up in the morning and go to work. If you want to see more, check out the flickr set.
I gave the youth ministry students an assignment to go out and interview real young people about their problems. Oscar went to a school in one of the neighborhoods around here, got some great interview footage on video (I’ll post that later), and then got us invited to share at a school assembly.
Next Friday, we are going back to the school to give a talk on dealing with the pressures of being a teenager. It all happened pretty suddenly. I think I even heard that we have two hours if we want. That’s a lot of time to hold people’s attention. We better get our creative juices flowing. What an opportunity!
We scored a place to host the Generación Lideres conference in Puebla, the Spanish equivalent to Youth Specialties’ Core training day (which I’d love to go to this year, but living in Mexico makes it difficult…that’s another post).
We’ll be holding the conference in a university, and it should be great. The only bad thing is that we have to travel to Puebla. Next year, I want to host it in Mexico City.
Related Links: Generación Lideres; Especialidades Juveniles; Youth Specialties; The Core
