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.