"Give Me a Hand, Lend Me Your Ear!"

Let me first apologize for the fact that it's been over a year from my last blog!  Youth ministry has been busy over the past year & is still going strong into this fall year!  God has truly been awesome over the past year.  Sense the last blog, God has allowed me to take a two separate youth groups to Chicago,ILL (July 2009) to help with an intercity basketball camp, Memphis, TN (Aug. 2009) to work with a home mission church, go on a ten mile walk for missions in Wycliffe, KY (June 2010), & to Phoenix, AZ (July 2010) to help a church pull off a V.B.S. for their outreach in their community. 

Over the past three weeks I have been speaking to our youth on Wednesday nights in "The Extreme!"  about unity in our group.  Last week we looked at 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 in where Paul compares the human body to the body of Christ.  1 Corinthians 12:12 it says, "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body:  so also is Christ.".  It brought to mind of all the mission trips I've taken with our youth groups during these past summers.  Within our own youth group you can see all the variety & diversity.  With that in mind, you have to get the group to see the same thing that Paul saw nearly two thousand years ago with his friends in Corinth.  As Christians, we are to work in unity for the same cause to win others to Christ.  In order for these mission trips to work, each person has to put aside their self & realize that unless each of us are doing our part & is in the right place doing our job, mission trips don't work the way God wants them to.  It would be like a "praise band" with only five bass players;  a football team with nothing but quarterbacks;  and a bike with no pedals (would only work great going down hill!).  So goes the body of Christ.  Take a moment and see if there is a way that you can build someone up & working with them in unity for the same cause of Christ.  We should work at eliminating attitudes & behavior that hinder our unity.  When it come down to it, we really need each other in order to work & serve! 

Philippians 2:3 says, "Let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.".  And that's the thought for the week from a 42 year old ( I'm sorry, I'm now 43 years old!!!!) Youth Pastor!