To Save a Life: Final Thoughts

Last night, a group of 8 of use from the To Save a Life group, met up to enjoy some fellowship time and eat some sushi at Hook’s, in St. Petersburg. We spent a couple hours enjoying each other’s company, trying different rolls, and building atop the foundations of our friendships.

And now, as I look back over the last 7 weeks, I have fond memories of the time we spent together. We learned a lot about each other and about what the Lord commands from us as His followers. We learned that we can’t wait for God to bring us the hurting and the lost, but we must reach out to them. We learned that we are all hurting in some way. We learned the importance of having a group of people in which we can open up, and expose ourselves to, in order to heal.

I think the most important thing we can take from this class is that God loves us. It seems like such a simple thing and people will say, if you ask them, “Oh, I know God loves me.” But, I don’t think we as humans can really comprehend the immense love that He has for us. We can read about it, and talk about it all day, every day, but until you experience it, you cannot begin to understand the depths of His love. Until you feel His arms wrapped around you in your darkest, most painful moments, you have no idea. Until you look back at an experience in your life and see how God had his hand on your shoulder, you’ll never know. And until you give into God, and accept His love, then you will always be left empty, and wanting. You will try to find that love in other ways – ways that will most certainly lead to more pain, and more emptiness.

Non-believers want us as Christ followers to show them God. If they see God, then they will believe. But, the world has corrupted our thinking so much that this just isn’t possible (that I know of), and non-believers have a very hard time with the truth; believe, and then you will see. Live for God and God will reveal Himself to you. Die to yourself so that you may live eternally for Him.
Now I can’t sit here and say I have 100% given myself over to Him. I wish I could, and I am working towards that, but the world still has a grip on parts of me. Jesus would look at me and say, “why do you have so little faith?” and I wouldn’t be able to respond. But the more I give over to Him, the more I feel His love. And the more I feel His love, the more I want to give of myself. And I think that is what we have to do.

Some might be able to jump in full force and leave themselves behind and charge on towards heaven in glorious victory over the adversary. But most people, I think, have to take baby steps. God loves us all the same, full-fledged believer, casual Christian, or non-believer. He wants the same for us all. It is just that some of us have already accepted that free gift. Some of us chose to believe and can now see. And it is our responsibility to return a portion of the love that God gives us, and show others that God’s love is available to them as well  (Luke 10:27).

To those of you who believe, I say move forward. Always move forward. Some of you will take giant leaps forward, and some of you will move an inch. But if we are all moving forward, and we are all helping each other along, then one day we can look to our left, and look to our right, and see that we have locked arms with a mighty nation of believers who all stand for one common purpose – and in doing so we find a an adventure, a sense of brotherhood, and the confidence to be bold in our beliefs.

We are moving forward then, on to our next adventure. We will start a new group at the beginning of April and go through a 12 week series on Josh McDowell’s book, The Unshakable Truth. In our new journey we will uncover more about what it means to experience Christ, what it is we believe, and the truth behind those beliefs.

Please continue to pray for us. I will be inviting more students from FUSE to join us and am looking forward to seeing who God calls to the group.

To Save a Life: Week 6 Review

Stepping Into the Bigger Story

Group Stats:
11 students

• 11 returning
• 0 new

We had a bit of a rough start last night. We had some slight technical difficulties. And, as a result of our close bond, we had a room full of people that just wanted to talk/fellowship. We quickly reviewed week 5 and a couple students shared stories about people they had talked to over the last seven days.

One student heard God calling him to speak to a girl at his school whom he found sitting alone in a stairwell. He shared with her how God had transformed his life. In the process, he planted a seed that god can now use to begin moving in this young woman’s life.

Another student approached one of his teachers whom he had trouble with almost 4 years ago and asked for forgiveness. The two shook hands and we able to talk. I am sure the teacher was deeply touched by the gesture.

A third student shared how she had invited her friend to FUSE last week and it completely opened his heart to attending church again. He had a bad experience as a child and didn’t think church was a place for him, but after hearing the speakers last week and witnessing the FUSE family, he got hooked and will be attending youth group on a regular basis now.

I don’t know why I am surprised by these stories. I feel a bit like the disciples watching Jesus calm the waters. Still, the fact that these students are taking what they have heard in group and applying it to their everyday life is amazing. Thank you for your prayers, and praise God for using this time to impact the lives of each of these students.

After ‘story time’ we prayed for the evening. Things began to calm down a bit.

We watched our clip from To Save a Life for the evening. It the clip, Jake, and the other students from the youth group, begin meeting together in the quad during lunch. Some kids laugh and make fun of them. Other kids look on and wonder what they are doing. Some kids even walk over and sit down with them. As a result of this, Jake sees Jonny sitting off by himself. Jake walks over and invites Jonny to join them, but Jonny declines. Later, Jonny ends up joining them and makes new friends and finds a reason to live as a result of feeling wanted by the group.

So the purpose of the community was to come together as believers. As a result of this, non-believers found their way to the group. And, it gave the believers a reason to talk to the lost and hurting. Jake didn’t have to go over and try to save Jonny. He didn’t have to prepare some big speech and ask question after question until Jonny admitted that he was broken and needed a savior. He didn’t have to argue with Jonny about the existence of God. He just wanted to invite him to come eat with him and his friends. The community made it easier to reach out. God could use this small gesture to make a big difference in Jonny’s life. The montage in the film is very reminiscent of the early church, and something we need more of today.

I decided not to write/deliver a message for this week. Instead I wanted to have a real discussion with the group about community — as a community. We read Acts 2:42-47 as a primer for our discussion:

The Believers Form a Community

“All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity— all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.”

We talked about the importance of coming together as a community of believers and how that would make it easier to reach out to others. We aren’t in this alone. We don’t have to have all the answers. We don’t need a degree in theology. We just need to be able to build relationships and love.

I prepared a series of questions to get the students thinking/talking about community:

1. What is community?
2. What could you do at your school to increase the level of community and reach out to the lost and hurting?
   1. How do you keep this going?

We spent quite a bit of time on question 2. Half the students in our group go to the same high school so we focused on it. They had different ideas about meeting up at lunch or before school. However, each idea was met with a, “yeah, but….” There kept popping up a reason why their ideas wouldn’t work.

I so wanted to come up with some great ideas that we could work on implementing, but God had different plans, and I could see that we weren’t getting anywhere so I simply asked them, “If there was a vehicle for you to be a part of a community of believers who met to encourage each other, uplift each other, and grow spiritually together, would you want to be a part of it?

It was unanimous. Everyone wanted to be a part of it. So, that’s square one. The desire it there, now we just need to find the vehicle.

I also let them know that when we do find the vehicle that they would have a huge responsibility to not just talk the talk of a Christ follower, but walk the walk as well. All eyes will be on them, waiting for them to mess up so that someone can scream, “hypocrite.” But I don’t see that happening. I have faith that God will direct the community and they will find themselves, as the early church did, adding to their numbers daily.

In order to help them deal with this responsibility, I asked them to think about the following questions and either answer in the group or speak to me privately:

3. Where are you spiritually?
4. Where do you want to be spiritually?
5. How can you get there?
6. How can I help you get there?

Those who spoke felt that they were doing well spiritually, but could do better. They all want to be ‘better Christians’ and will do that by going to church, being a part of small groups, praying, and getting into the word. I feel like they have a good grasp on the ‘what to do’ and we just need to work on actually doing it.

The discussion naturally shifted towards what the students would like to be doing to grow. One student wants to start going door to door, talking to people and telling them about God’s love. Another student said he would go with him (which was pretty cool because the two students hardly know each other). A couple students talked about getting a booth at the local flea market; someplace where there is a lot of foot traffic and people could stop and ask questions and the students could minister to them which lead to talk about organizing fundraisers. We talked about doing a car wash at the church…

We ended up having a great discussion on community. The students respected each other as they spoke (after a while) and those who chose to speak had the opportunity to do so without feeling like someone else in the group was going to put down there idea.

All the students have a strong desire to get out into our local community. We will be actively seeking out ways we can do local missions trips and really make and impact on the city of St. Petersburg, as well as participating in over-seas missions.

One of the students prayed and we ended the evening.

So that was it. We are done with this series now. Next week we will meet as a group and go out to eat together. After that, we will take a couple weeks off while I look for another series for us to do together and we will get started again in April.

Pray that we can find a way for these students to have a community group at their schools. And, pray for our high schools as a whole. There are so many students walking around, desperately looking for help, but afraid to ask for it. There are students who honestly believe that they are screaming out for help by staying silent, but that no one sees them. We pass by people every day that are contemplating suicide or dealing with some sort of addiction and who assume that they are alone. Pray that God puts those people in our path and gives us the courage to open our mouths and do something small that God can use to save a life.

To Save a Life: Week 6 Thoughts

Stepping Into the Bigger Story

This will be our final week in the To Save a Life series. I will write another post on my thoughts on the series as a whole. I want to make sure to keep the focus on the lesson this week and not get distracted by my reflections on the last 6 weeks.

We will be discussing community this week. Our main focus will be Acts 2, or what I always think of as the golden era of Christianity. This was a time when people were working together for a common purpose. The Holy Spirit was guiding the community. People were getting saved. A strong sense of community was built. Life was exciting. They were on an adventure. But, somewhere along the line, the excitement went away.

I think we see glimpses of that feeling of adventure in the church today. Someone gets an idea to start a new small group, or community group, and they drum up some excitement in a circle of friends. A few outsiders join the group and they go out and do their thing for a few weeks or months. It seems great, much like the group of students that’s involved with this series. A family unit is formed and things are exciting. And then something happens. Life gets in the way. Family, jobs, and responsibilities take over and the group dwindles or changes in a way that the original group sees and thinks, “man, this sure was a lot better when…” and before you know it the group is done and gone. On to the next new thing. I suppose that these flash in the pan groups serve a purpose. After all, God uses all things for good and if one person chose to follow God, or felt God’s love as a result of that group, then it was a success.

But what happened to the church? We are all supposed to be one body working towards one goal. We are supposed to be breaking bread together and helping each other stay the course. We are supposed to be adding to our numbers daily. But I don’t see that happening.
The first person I blame is me. I’m not doing enough. I’m not saying enough. I’m not creating the very thing I am looking for. I get caught up in my own issues. I look back and say, “man, things were a lot better when….”

I’m rambling here, I know. But, I am trying to work through a thought on community. How do we come together as one body when we can’t even agree on what the Bible means? We get caught up in semantics. We argue about which translation of the bible is the best. We spend hours discussing what Jesus may have meant. And in all our disagreements we are divided.

The world doesn’t look at us and see the body of Christ. They see a house divided, and crumbling. They see Catholics, Protestant, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and so on. They see denomination, not community. What happened to our common goal? How are we supposed to create community when most of us don’t even want to live in the same neighborhood? The world can just sit back and watch us fade away.

I don’t have the answers. But I think we can all agree (oh, I know…we can’t) that if we are to have a true revival; if we are to stop ourselves from fading away and save the truth, then we have to come together and remember what it was we were commanded to do – to be His witnesses, to tell people about Him everywhere.

So this week we are going to talk about how the students can come together in their schools. We will discuss ideas for bringing people together and creating something that might last long after they are graduated and gone…a grandiose idea, for sure, but if we don’t dream big then we don’t give God the opportunity to do big things.

To Save a Life: Week 5 Review

How to Save a Life

Group Stats:
11 students

• 3 new
• 8 returning

It was nice to see some new faces this week. And I loved the fact that they were willing to jump right in and share. That shows that the other students have created a comfortable, friendly, loving environment for visitors. They aren’t some exclusive club sectioning themselves off from the rest of the population to learn about how to be Christ followers in private. Ha! If they were, then I failed them, and this course was a waste of time.

We kicked off the night with a review from last week. I asked a few questions to make sure they were paying attention to the message last week and responses were favorable. There was a lot of energy in the room and just about everyone was eager to share something (whether it pertained to the question or not).

We also took a few minutes to discuss the recent school shooting in Ohio. One or two of the students were not aware of what happened and we filled each other in the best we could. The young man who entered the school with a gun is exactly the kind of lost and hurting soul that we have been discussing throughout this class. We agreed that his family situation and the bullying he faced at school was no excuse for him to do what he did, but that it was clear that there were some big hurts in this child’s life that he didn’t know how to deal with.

The whole situation proves that what we are learning about is not just stories or movies that some religious leaders made up to scare kids into believing what they want them to believe. Rather, these are real life situations. These are real people. What we are learning matters and we really can positively affect the lives of the people around us!

That’s what I wanted to say to the group anyway, but it didn’t quite come out that way.

I prayed for the evening and we settled in to talk about this week’s topic.

We didn’t have the TV/DVD player to watch the clip from the movie (my fault, I forgot to request it), but we did briefly discuss the scene we would have watched where Jake reads a letter from Jonny near the end of the movie. We discussed how Jake’s small acts of kindness are what really save Jonny and how, in our own experience, just being there to listen to someone talk, to compliment someone, or even how just smiling at someone can make a big difference to them whether we realize it or not.

I then asked the students what they had gotten out of this series so far. I was very pleased with the feedback. The students talked about different activities we had done like the ‘crossing the river’ exercise and re-writing each other’s log lines. They talked about how great it was that they could be so open and honest with the group and the reason we could be so open was because we all had this common purpose in our desire to be closer to God and to help others. It warmed my heart to listen to them talk. They’ve actually been listening! They’ve actually gotten something out of this experience. God has been able to work here! Good stuff.

I was also able to share with them what this class has meant to me so far. God has really used it to make some big positive changes in my life and I can feel Him preparing me for something bigger.

This led us into the message for the week on How to Save a Life. I felt pretty good about the message, especially since after I finished writing it, I read Romans 12 and found that Paul’s letter and my message were pretty similar. I considered using Romans in place of what I wrote, but instead gave it to them as homework. What it boils down to is that we are called to love God, and love our neighbors. If we are obedient in these two tasks, then God can use us to change people’s lives and thus, change the world.

Their challenge this week is to go out and show God’s love to someone. They are a great group and this is probably something they do anyway without even thinking about it. I want them to be aware of it this week and to report back to the group.

Next week will be our last actual week of the course. The guide says week 6 should be a big pot-luck meal. The students are to invite people from their schools who are lost and hurting. After giving it much thought/prayer and listening for an answer, I felt like this idea was too forced. The students should be taking what they learned out into the world and loving on other people. If that means inviting them to FUSE, or to church on Sunday morning, then fantastic. If that means they are a good friend to them at school and make it a point to help those students feel less lonely and more loved, then that is fantastic too.  But having a party for these people just doesn’t feel right. So we are skipping the pot-luck and will move joyfully into week 7; the final session of the class.

Please don’t stop praying for us! We need as much as we can get right now. Pray that our eyes and our hearts are open and able to see the lost and hurting around us; to see past the walls and masks that people build and wear. Pray that God uses us to touch the hearts of these people and show them what it really means to follow Christ.

To Save a Life: Week 5 Message

How to Save a Life

Over the last month we have been talking a lot about the different aspects of the movie, To Save a Life. And, we have discussed how we can apply those concepts to our lives. We have learned about God’s love for us. We’ve talked about the value of people. We learned the importance of not being lukewarm when it comes to our walk as Christ followers. And we’ve found out who we really are because of what God did for us and how we can help re-write peoples’ lives.

This week we are going to put it all together. I want to talk about how to save a life. It seems like a pretty big deal, and it is, but doing it, I think, is easier than you might imagine.

When I think of savings someone’s life, I immediately picture a paramedic or a doctor. I see someone who has had years of training; someone who possesses mass amounts of knowledge about the human body and how it works. They know how different drugs and antibiotics affect the body. They know how to stop bleeding. They can perform surgery, do heart transplants, and revive people. All of this makes my head hurt. I am in awe of their abilities.

At the same time, it’s kind of funny. We can look in any of the gospels and find instances of Jesus saving people from death, or even bringing them back to life with nothing more than a touch or a word. In one case a woman just touched the tail end of his robe and she was healed from a horrific disease.

But we are neither doctors nor Jesus. So how do we go about the business of saving lives?

The short answer is…we don’t.

Thanks for coming…have a great night!

It’s pretty simple. We cannot save peoples’ lives. To think that we can is to think that we can play God. We do not get to decide who lives and who dies. We do not get to determine the course of the future. In fact, the only way to have life is to have a relationship with God. Without Him, we are all dead. What we can do though, if we are willing, is to be a tool for God.

God gave us each different talents and spiritual gifts so that He can use us to save other people. We are his toolbox. He gave some people the ability to heal. Other people have the ability to teach. Still others are good with words. Some prophecy or preach. Others can perform miracles or speak in tongues. The list goes on and on. And, in each of these cases, God works through us, using those gifts to accomplish His will.

Looking at the movie, let’s think about what Jake’s gifts are. He is an athlete. Being athletic put him in the spotlight and gave him a platform from which to speak. Sound familiar (I.e. Tim Tebow or Ben Henderson)? He derives confidence from that position so that he could, if he chooses, speak the word of God. And let’s not forget how his athleticism got him to the police car to save Jonny. Jake also has a great sense of responsibility. He puts things on himself…which is often times good, but sometimes can backfire as can all gifts if not used for God. He feels a sense of responsibility to not let his dad down when it came to school and sports. He feels responsible for his friend’s death. He also feels that same sense of responsibility towards helping Jonny, the youth group, and his girlfriend.

As a result of his gifts, God uses him to positively affect the lives of the people around him and re-define the memory of his friend for good.

Likewise, God can use each of us to reach out to the lost and the hurting. What our gifts give us is the ability to perform small acts of love in different ways. God calls us all to do two things…the top 2 commandments,

Luke 10:27 (NLT)

‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

So how do you save a life?

The answer is love. As we are out in the world we are commanded to love others. We’ve learned how much God loves us. Now it is time to spread that love to other people by being witnesses to the risen Jesus. And, in the process, God will use us to save lives. You don’t need a medical degree. You don’t need to be able to perform miracles. All you need is the ability to love, and the willingness to give that love freely, without the expectation of repayment, praise, or thanks.

So tonight, I will leave you with the last words Jesus said before ascending into heaven:

Acts 1:8 (NLT)

…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.