Since I am from West Texas, one may read this and think that the wind has finally blown hard enough to send me away, but I am simply using it as an expression. Although, the wind has been pretty ferocious lately!
The few weeks just before Christmas our youth group grew through a three lesson series focused on worshiping God with all of our talents and glorifying Him in all situations with all that we've got. During this series we watched the video that is posted just below this paragraph. We challenged the students and asked them to come up with a plan that we could worship God with what we have AND help our brothers and sisters in this world (since we are all children of God). They decided to save money for three months and then collect the money that they saved to put toward a fresh water well in one of our mission locations in the world: Mumena, Africa. We did some research and learned that it would cost about $1200 to drill a fresh water well. Tonight was the third of the "collection" nights for the well. Our youth group saved $842 and a quart size bag full of quarters!!!! I am seriously moved and completely overwhelmed. I'm so impressed with this generation, in general, and specifically the 100+ teenagers that make up our youth group. Several students came to me after class and said that they didn't save money but that they have decided to and want me to keep them accountable to that commitment. And what's more is that a leadership group (made of about 30-40 students who volunteer their time after class) has decided to save money at the beginning of each month to give regularly to different causes (local and abroad)! CAN WE SAY PRAISE GOD!?
My lesson tonight in class had this premise: every decision we make, as Christians, should be Christ centered. I had lunch with a friend (Jon Mills) today and during our conversation he brought up the old reliable "B's" from our childhood within the Church of Christ community: Believe, Behave, & Belong. And these B's were taught in this order: we believe in Christ, we behave by his teachings, and we belong to our Christian community. We discussed how Christ has a different order of those B's ... take the woman who committed adultery in John 8. He didn't ask her to tell everyone in the crowd that she believed he was the Christ in order to earn her belonging within the group, he allowed her to belong through his actions when he proved that she was like everyone else: a sinner. His order of the B's is as follows: allow to BELONG, BELIEVE due to the difference made by belonging, and BEHAVE because of your changed life. We could use Jesus and the leper, Jesus and a blind man, Jesus and Lazarus, etc... the examples are plenty and the point remains the same: people belonged before they were asked to change their behavior. You may remember the last thing Jesus said to the woman in John 8: "Go and sin no more." Behavior was the last thing he asked of her. I, also, relayed a story from my cousin Trey's blog (treymorgan.net) entitled, "You're a member of the Church of Christ? Aren't you the ones that..." In this personal story, Trey recalls several frightening descriptions and accusations of the Church of Christ ... and if you are a member of the Church of Christ, you know many on the list. His story, however, ends with a lady who says, "Hey! you go to the Church of Christ? Aren't you the ones who are helping people in the community?!" What an awesome question to be asked! So I asked our students to fill in the blank: "Aren't you the church who ... " To that one of our adults in the classroom responded, "When I go to Mumena this summer and visit the village who receives your well I will ask them to finish that statement. I bet you they will say, 'Aren't you the ones who saved my children because you gave us fresh water?'" Again, PRAISE GOD! Trey concluded the aforementioned article by quoting Acts 10:38, "Jesus went around doing good things..." I want to finish that verse, "...because God was with him." I agree with Trey: I like the idea of a church who goes around doing good things and we do this because God is with us and should be the center of everything we do.
I am blown away by our students and I praise God for their parents. I praise God for the support they give one another. And I praise God for caring about all of us on Earth so that He gave us the primary example of how to live our lives! Finally, I praise God for continually blowing me away with His goodness. I'm happy that I get to be part of His grand story.
