MADE: Shaped by God

 

MADE is a 3-week study for students in getting them to dive deeper into some Biblical truths about how God wants us to be more like clay, branches, and sheep. Each of these 3 topics takes a full week to go through: one section a day for 3 weeks.

It will hopefully show students how God wants to be able to help mold us like clay because He is the Potter, how we need to be branches and be connected to the vine, Himself, the source of life, and how to be sheep in the care of the shepherd.

Each day takes about 5 minutes to read through a passage of Scripture and journal through some questions about it. This is a great way for your students to dive just a little bit deeper into their faith with God, learning how to know Him in a more intimate way.

Here is a sample from Week 1 Day 2. If you want to check out the full resource, you can get it for $5 on Download Youth Ministry. I hope it would be a great resource for your students:

Day 2: Do Not Quarrel with the Potter

 

“Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say,

 ‘He has no hands?”-

 Isaiah 45:8

 

As we mentioned yesterday, it can be easy to be too critical on ourselves and to think God may have made a mistake on us. Instead of trusting God’s design for us, we choose to trust what the world tells us is right. But how would God respond to our questioning Him? Can the clay question the potter?

 

Read Isaiah 45:5-12

1. How do verses 5-7 reveal God’s power and majesty?
2. Why do you think people (including Christians) believe that the God who created the world would make a mistake on those made in His image (Genesis 1:27)?
3. How does verse 11 show that God reserves the right to be the Potter even if the clay doesn’t like how it is being shaped?
4. What are some ways you have questioned God as the Potter and the Maker of your life? How does this passage point you to trust in Him and His work?

 

See also: Romans 9:20-21; Isaiah 29:16; Deuteronomy 32:5-6

Overcoming Fear

There are two types of fear. One is good and is encouraged and the other is a fear that is to be overcome. The first one is the fear of the Lord. This doesn’t mean to be afraid of God; rather it is being in awe of God realizing all of His power and glory. It is having respect for His wrath and anger. This type of fear is total acknowledgment of all that God is, which comes through knowing and studying Him and His attributes.

This is not the fear I want to talk about. The other type of fear is “the spirit of fear”.  This type of fear is mentioned in 2 Timothy 1:7 which says, ““For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind”. A spirit of fearfulness and timidity does not come from God.

I’m not going to lie. There are times when I’m afraid. I don’t care how old you are, when you are by yourself you hear weird noises at home and you freak out a little bit. There are things in our lives that scare us, whether it’s a conversation we have to have, something we need to overcome, or a sin we need to deal with and confess. The “spirit of fear” takes us over and it’s in this time we need to trust God completely. No one is perfect, and God knows this. I believe this is why He intentionally put verses about overcoming fear, encouraging verses, throughout the entire Bible. From Geneses to Revelation, God tell us to “fear not”.

God tells us not to be afraid of being too weak. God tells us not to be afraid of being alone. God tells us not to be afraid of not being heard by Him. God tells us not to be afraid of lacking physical necessities. We all do at times if we are honest about it. Trusting in God is refusal to give into fear. It is us turning to God in the darkest of times and trusting Him to make things right.

Once we have learned put our trust in God we will be able to overcome anything that stands in our way that we once were fearful of.

1 John 4:18– There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

Isaiah 41:10– Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Psalm 56:11– In God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?

Psalm 5:11– But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you.

Romans 8:31-32– What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Pray:

• For God to give you a healthy fear of Him acknowledging all His power.
• Because you acknowledge His power, that he will take away that “spirit of fear” inside you.
• For what ever you are afraid of, to be given to God to place all your trust in Him.
• Pray that God’s spirit come near you and over take any fear of what you need to do or what you are facing.

Helping Students Pray for Friends and Family

Below is a little project I’m working on. I’ll explain more in a few weeks but I thought I would share a little excerpt from it. This particular section is talking about how we can walk students through praying for their friends and family who do not know who God is. Hope it’s useful:

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to my friends and family, there are no other people on this planet that I would rather spend a majority of my time with. Now we all know no family or friend group is perfect, they all have their shortcomings and annoyances, but for the most part they are people you love and respect. Also if you are anything like me, you have friends and family that do not know how much God loves them and they do not know Jesus the way you do.

One of the greatest things you can do for your friends and family is pray for them. We have 4 ways in which we can pray for our family and friends:

1. Pray for an opportunity to talk about Jesus (Colossians 4:3). Ask God to give you an opportunity to tell others about Christ and to invite them to your small group. God will take you seriously and answer your prayer!
2. Pray for God to prepare hearts. Pastor Rick sometimes says, “Do you know how God softens hearts? He sends the rain!” Anytime you see someone going through a storm in life, you can know God is softening a heart.
3. Pray for God to burden your heart. Ask God to make your heart tender toward a specific person or group of people.
4. Pray that God’s Word will simply take off. Pray that the words of Jesus “will simply take off and race through the country to a groundswell of response” (2 Thessalonians 3:1 MSG), just as they did among the early Christians.

It is important to know that God loves your family more than you do. He is a good God. It says like a basic thing but it really is profound. We need to remember to pray these things in faith. Faith energizes us; it allows us to be close to God continuously. We have to remember to be patient and allow God to work. Change could happen tomorrow, it could take twenty years. We need to allow God to work.

Take time, right now, to go over the 4 ways to pray for friends and family. Remember to pray with a humble and repentant heart. We first need to be right with God, because in my life, I saw people start to change when I changed myself first. Pray for your friends and family today that God would move in their lives.

*Some material from our Saddleback outreach materials.

Church Isn’t For Church Kids

Crazy right? Now let me explain.

In all of my ministry experience (4 years as a volunteer, 3 as full time minister), serving in four different churches, I have only have been under the leadership or have lead with the mindset of passion for reaching the non-believer. Of course there is discipleship, but the main purpose of the ministry to students is students bring their friend who don’t know Jesus to church so they get a chance to know Him. This is still a huge passion of mine. I understand there are a ton of different philosophies of ministry and strategies to reaching students who do not know Jesus, and I only can speak in which the context I have served and am currently serving. I have always had the mind-set that our main services for students is to reach the non-believer, not the already saved and converted.

Now, in the context of ministry our team works in, on the basis of our church DNA and pastor’s heart, our church was founded by the concept of: “This church is going to be a church for the people who don’t like church”. Everything we do on the weekend services is not for the Christian, but for the non-believer. Same with our student ministry. Our whole weekend experience is to EXPOSE students to the Gospel of Jesus, through many different outlets. The church is competing with the world for attention, and the world is good at it. I believe our ministry needs to be more creative, intentional, and good at executing the message of Jesus through great music, videos, sermon illustrations for new students who have never been to church before. Something that will get them thinking, “This is church? Not what I was expecting. I’ll come back to this to hear about this Jesus guy.”

It’s easy to think that when we loose our identity in way we do our weekend services that what we are doing is not helping students grow. It’s not for the church kids, it’s for the ones who are new and do not usually go to church. Now listen, we preach the message to students, every single service, and our team has had to deal with apathetic students who say, “Well I just don’t get anything out of it anymore.” Usually my first questions back are, “Are you in a small group? Are you in scripture everyday? Are you serving somewhere? No wonder. The services are not for you” (I say this in a loving way of course).

Small groups are the back bone to our ministry. Our goal is to get all students in a life group because that is where I believe life change happens. We have more students in small groups than who attend our weekends (glory be to God because that is Him working amazingly through our small group leaders who minister to our students). Services are the means in which we get them to a small group to grow deeper in Christ, and our small group team and volunteer leaders do an amazing job at getting kids in groups to minister to them in ways that they need.

I understand that there are so many different ways in which we do ministry. I understand that their are some groups that go verse by verse through the Bible, which the last church I was serving at did, and it’s great. But you have to look at the type of people coming into your ministry and make the decision from there. Context changes at every group you go to. Our services are not geared for the devoted believer, small groups are for this, our services are geared for the non-believer to create an understandable message for them to know Jesus and then surround that message with fun and creative ways to help them understand it better.

What is your ministry philosophy on that? Do you plan this as well? How does it look different? 

Youth Workers: You Are Loved

Is it budgeting meeting time for you too? Some of you join me in solidarity as you just went through this meeting yourself, and others of you just got mad at me for reminding you that it’s coming up in a few months. Woops, sorry.

It’s no secret that many churches are hurting finically and when it comes to the church budgeting meeting sometimes it looks likes a wrestling match. Different ministries are fighting to not lose money here or to gain money there. Then it comes time to talk about student ministry and the criticisms starts.

Some of the comments are constructive.

Some of the comments you just nod politely and think, “Homie, you think student ministry is just a good message and a game huh? Ahh that’s cute.”

Then there it is; that one comment that pierces you where it hurts most. You just want walk out of the room crying or reach across the table and strangle the person. You know that feeling I’m talking about? Perhaps this feeling did not occur at that budget meeting. Maybe it that one comment from a parent, or that co-worker, or that e-mail, or something else entirely, but as a youth worker you are not only offended, but your feelings are hurt and for a split (or not so split) moment you are numb.

I want to recognize the reality that we in student ministry also hurt. We also go through pains and trials. Sometimes it is work related; we can be having a great time in ministry and then something happens negatively at work and we hold on to that. Yes, I know it is not healthy to hold on to the negative, but let’s admit that we hold on to the negative from time to time. Sometimes our hurt is not work related at all. We too feel loneliness, and we too know the feeling that everything is not alright.

Today, I just want to simply remind you that YOU ARE LOVED. You are loved first of all by the Creator of the universe. You are loved by the God who is compassionate, gracious; slow to anger, and abounding in love and faithfulness. You are loved by the very same God who called you to this ministry. God wants you in this ministry journey. We tell students all the time that they are loved and they are not alone. This time it is our turn to hear that too.

We are loved and we are not alone. Remember when we tell students that Christ shares in their sufferings? Remember when we tell students that Christ knows full well our pains and struggles? Yes, that message is for us as well.

We are loved and we are not alone.

Also know that you are loved by your students and their families. They love you for coming to their games. They love you for coming to their concert. They love you for just being there when they are hurting. They love you for how you have cared for their child.

Friends, we know that hurt still continues, but we have a hope that helps us continue in life and in ministry.

Friends, YOU ARE LOVED.

*This post was written by my very good friend/pastor/my groomsmen/college roommate who is the Student Ministries Director at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church in Long Beach, CA. He is one of my favorite people on this earth and you can follow him on Twitter @wernerramirez 

Guest Post: Ain’t Nobody Got Time Fo Dat

What’s interesting about time is the fact that everyone has the same amount of it in any given day.  Oddly enough, it seems as if there are people who have all the time in the world and others seem as if they never get enough.  In youth ministry, we seem to get the second of the bunch.  When it comes to the weekly tasks, videos, curriculum and message prep there doesn’t seem to be enough time in the days or the weeks to actually put into practice the things Jesus asked us to do.

The other day, I realized something interesting about Jesus’ interactions with people.  Jesus had a lot to do.  Jesus had places to go.  But for some reason, whenever a person would approach Him, Jesus would make that person feel like there was nothing more important than whatever that person’s needs were.  He would stop what he was doing, address the situation and act compassionately towards that person.  Not only did that demonstrate an amazing ability to problem solve, it gave everyone around a snapshot of what the Kingdom mindset was all about.

If we do not do the same in our ministries with our parents, students and leaders, we are missing the boat.

With all the things on our plates, how is it possible to pour into people the way Jesus did?  We cannot forget that we are in the disciple making business.  Our goal ought to be to make sure when people approach us on the weekends or week days, that there is nothing more important to us than what is happening in the people’s lives we were called to serve.  How do we even begin to do that?

When we align ourselves with God’s will for us and our ministry, He will provide us efficient time to not only get our weekly tasks done, but to serve our people as well.  In Spiritual Leadership, J. Oswald Sanders says, “The secret of Jesus’ serenity lay in His assurance that He was working according to the Father’s plan for His life – a plan that embraced every hour and made provision for every need.  Through communion in prayer with His Father, Jesus received each day both the words He would say and the works He would do”.  We have access to this as well.  I am willing to bet that the majority of us younger pastors admit to the fact that we’d like to spend more time in the Word or in prayer.  In order to make sure He had the time to do other things, Jesus made daily conversation with God and submission to his authority a priority in His daily routine.  When we do the same, God will allow us the necessary time to do His will.

That seems like a good starting point to me.

Adam Knowles is the Junior High Director at Inland Hills Church in Chino, CA.  He is married to his wife Melissa and has a daughter named Scotti and a son named Hudson.  He loves Jesus a lot, too.  Follow him on Twitter + Instagram: @adam_knowles

Seeing God’s Glory

The glory of God is the beauty of His spirit. It is not an “normal” beauty or a material beauty, but it is the beauty that comes from His character, from all that He is. James 1:10 calls on a rich man to “glory in his humiliation,” indicating a glory that does not mean riches or power or material beauty. This glory can crown man or fill the earth. It is seen within man through his character and how he acts, but it is not of them; it is of God. The glory of man is the beauty of man’s spirit, which is not perfect and eventually passes away, it is not of God. But the glory of God, which is placed in all His attributes together, never passes away. It is eternal.

This is the mistake many people continue to make: trusting in earthly things, earthly relationships, their own powers or talents or beauty, or the goodness they see in others. But when these things fade and fail as they will inevitably do (being only temporary  forms of glory), we get hurt. What we all need to realize is that God’s glory is constant, and as we journey through life we will see it form here and there, in this person or that forest, or in a story of love or heroism, fiction or non-fiction, or our own personal lives. But it all goes back to God in the end. And the only way to God is through His Son, Jesus Christ. We will find the very source of all beauty in Him, in heaven, if we are in Christ. Nothing will be lost to us. All those things that faded in life we will find again in Him.

John 1:14–And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Psalm 8: 1–O LORD, our Lord, how excellent (majestic and glorious) is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory on [or above] the heavens.

2 Peter 1: 3– For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the [full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue).

Ask yourself:

• What in your life have you put all you had into temporary glory  of earthly things? (i.e. friends, adults, relationships, talents, beauty etc)
• Have they lasted? Have they always delivered?
• Why or why not?

Today, pray:

• To God for Him to reveal His glory in your life.
• To not be tempted to follow temporary glory of things that will not last.
• That your eyes only look to Him in hope to see Jesus’ glory for what He has done for us on the cross.

It’s More Than Obedience

OBEY! I don’t know about you, but when I hear that word at first, I cringe a little bit. Do what you tell me to do? Come on. But this word is essential to our faith as Christians. This word is more than just do what your parents tell you to do, it is more than a list of commands, it’s even more than a popular clothing brand, it is a word which is the essence of the Christian faith.

Obedience is defined as “dutifully complying with the commands, orders, or instructions of one in authority.” Even looking at this definition from the dictionary, we can see how this word fits right into the biblical definition God lays out for us. “Dutifully” means we are responsible to obey God, just as Jesus fulfilled His duty of dying on the cross for us. “Commands, orders, or instructions” refers to the Bible and all of the teachings God has laid out for us in this amazing book. “One authority” is God Himself whose authority overrides anything else in this world. For the Christian, obedience means complying with everything God has commanded because it is our duty to do so.

There is a difference in straight up obeying and the spirit of obedience.  If your parents gave you a list of things to obey and do and you just get it done because you have to do it, your relationship with your parents would seem like a burden because they just tell you to do certain things and if you don’t obey you will be in trouble. If you are obedient to them because you love and respect them and trust they know what is best for you then your relationship with them would be much closer because you obey them because you WANT to. Same with God, if you were to look at obedience like a list of things to get done because you HAVE to do them, of course you are going to resist it and think it is a burden. When you have the mind set of of love and respect for God, and have the spirit of obedience, you obey because you WANT to our of love for Him.

Because of Jesus, all of the Old Testament Laws and rules were fulfilled. Jesus calls all of us to a new law to abide to. A law He summed up in two commandments. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the prophets hang on these two commandments’” (Matthew 22:36-40).

We are not going to do this perfectly. We are imperfect people. But if we love God, we will obey Him to the best of our ability and have the desire to do so our lives will be evidence of that desire. When we love God and obey Him we naturally have love for one another. Obedience is commanded by God, it is a must, but not only because it glorifies Him, because His commands are best for us to follow. Obedience brings joy, comfort and peace in a world where such things are hard to find, mainly due to disobedience and rejection of God and His Word.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9-“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

John 15:14- “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (Jesus’ speaking)

Galatians 5:13-14- For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

John 14:23-24- Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him. “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.

Ask yourself:

• Am I obeying God? What has He prompted me to do that I have not yet done?
• What are things in my life that I have not listened to God about?
• Have I even been open to what God has to say about my life?

Today, pray:

• That God will give you the spirit of obedience.
• That you will serve and obey Him because you want to out of love.
• Others will see love pouring out of you because of your obedience to Him.
• For God to reveal anything in your life that He has called for you to do but you have not been obedient with.
• That you do those things He commanded for you to do.

Grace Speaks Louder

Romans 5:20b-21- “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

This verse has been haunting me all this week. I say haunting because when I think about it, I think about how bad I have been at this idea of extending grace more than being upset when someone sins continually against me. That is such a foreign thing for us because the normal reaction when people keep sinning against you and hurting you is to get angrier and more upset when they do so.

“But were sin increased, grace increased all the more”, what a thought. I realized we are extended this grace every single day in our lives from God. We sin every single day and instead of getting more and more mad every day, God extends more and more grace to us every single day because of His love for us. This is the greatness of His love for us.

Have you ever seen someone just have a peace about them when they are going through difficult times with difficult people? You ever wonder how or why they seem to have this peace about them? I believe it is because they understand this verse and live it. This is what makes them different, this is what makes them stand out and this is why people want to know why.

Sometimes the best witnessing tool is not our words, but how we deal with and handle things in grace. The more issues, the more grace. It stand out and shouts to the people around you what God does with us every single day. People respond to that. People notice that. People want that grace and to know where it comes from.

If we were to model this grace, I wonder what our lives would show for it. Probably would be pretty amazing. This is my prayer from now on.

Guest Post: How to Get Students to Serve

Recently, I was asked to teach our small group leaders a workshop on how to get students to serve. This topic is impossible to fully answer in a 15 minute workshop or 500 word blog, but here are my condensed thoughts on it. I believe that getting students to serve should make us focus on two parties:

On the Leaders – It is impossible to get students to serve if you, as their leader, don’t believe in them. We need to believe that, through the Lord, students can change the world. I was talking with a friend recently about a project that some of our student leaders did at their school and they were so surprised that high school students did it. In today’s society, people have such low expectations of what a high schooler is capable of, and that mentality has rubbed off on them. They hold themselves back from making an impact because they don’t believe they can. If we want to break that, we first need to REALLY care about seeing students serve and believe that it is important. Whether you are 14 or 40, God has called us ALL to serve. That needs to be evident in the way we shepherd our students. If we don’t care, we can’t expect them to care.

On the Students – The first, and most important, part of this process is prayer. Nothing is accomplishable without the Lord having His hand in the situation. We need to be praying that the Lord stirs up a passion for serving in our students and gives them the confidence that God has prepared them for that purpose. There are a lot of students out there who don’t know they are gifted. For these students, we need to be take every opportunity we can to point out areas in which they are talented. Be honest with them! The goal isn’t flattery; it’s helping them understand how they are created!

Some students already know that they are gifted but they aren’t using them for the purpose of serving. This comes from the lack of understanding that these gifts are created FOR serving. I think that students believe that their talents and abilities are their own, and that they choose to use them to serve God. They don’t know that those gifts were GIVEN to them for the purpose of serving. That can be a game-changing idea.

The last thought that I think students should learn is that serving isn’t boring and it isn’t a chore. Since they were designed for it, serving is something that they will find joy in! Think of it like a hobby. People like hobbies because they care about them and/or are good at them. Serving is the same way! As youth pastors, we know that serving isn’t always puppy dogs and fairytales, but at the end of the day we love what we do because we are fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives.

Again, I could write about this topic for days and still have so much to say. These are just a few of the actions and ideas that I’ve seen work in our ministry. How do you get students to serve?

*Colton Harker is the Student Leadership Director at Saddleback HSM.  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact him at coltonharker@gmail.com or on twitter at @ColtonHarker.