I spent this past summer interning with the Student Ministry at Bethel Baptist Church, in Yorktown, VA. I had a blast working with the youth pastor, Jeff Mingee, and the female intern Jennifer Blackwell. It was in fact our second time working together, as Jen and I had interned last summer as well. That first go-round was certainly a learning experience. The unofficial theme of that summer, as we now joke, was “Welcome to Bethel; we’ll date you and then hate you.” Of course, that wasn’t our official theme, but it certainly seemed to be an accurate description of all of the middle and high school drama that had gone on. In actuality, we had no theme last summer, which I felt led to a bit of its chaos.
So, when Jeff, Jen, and I began to talk about what we wanted this summer to look like, I immediately suggested that we have a theme, one unifying purpose to unite us as a leadership team that we lacked last summer; an attempt to be responsibly proactive rather than frustratingly reactive. And so, with the drama of the previous internship still weighing on our minds, we settled on the theme of “Love in Action,” a challenge to the youth to seriously consider how we develop our earthly relationships in light of our heavenly relationship with Christ.
Throughout the summer we discussed the concept of love through a variety of outlets. In Sunday School we talked about the Courage it takes to love and how to love in the midst of Conflict. During Tuesday Bible Study we split by gender and studied our greatest example of love, Jesus, in the Gospel of John. In 1-on-1 lunches and conversations we talked about the importance of being a leader and setting examples in love. But our “big guns” came out on Wednesday nights during Student Impact, where Jeff, Jen, and I could take advantage of having all the students together to really hammer home some key points about Love in Action.
We tried to capture these points in some - hopefully - rememberable “catchphrases.” Catchphrases like:
In Matthew 22:34-40, Jesus, answering a question from the Pharisees, tells us that the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and that the second is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Christ himself says that the greatest love is that for God, and the second greatest is that for others. Consider for a moment that magnitude of the fact that the two most important commandments an Almighty God gives us, both have to do with love! Obviously it is something we need to spend significant time thinking about!
But it begs the question, why does God deserve so much, in fact all, of our love? Revelation 4:11 tells us, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created.” God is the greatest thing in the whole world! And He knows it! And in His mercy He has decided that we can share in His greatness. It’s not egomania; it’s love!
Okay, God is perfect, but people are not, so why do we have to love everybody equally? Certainly we can’t be expected to love a bully as much as we love our friends; or our boss as much as we love our spouse. But Genesis 1:27, Psalm 139:13-14, and 1 Peter 2:9 all point to the message throughout the Bible that because we are all created by God, in the image of God, every person on the planet has innate value.
However, this message differs with how we build our identity in culture. Culture wants our worth to be defined by how immersed we are in the culture itself (It’s certainly a self-serving motivation on the part of culture!). Culture convinces us that culture is important in a number of ways. Through television, movies, etc., culture tries to convince us that our identity is dependent on the culture.
Cultural perceptions of beauty show this most clearly. Culture has convinced people to do some pretty crazy things over the years. We discussed foot-binding in China, corsets in Europe, tribal neck rings and piercings, and unrealistic thinness in today’s culture. In culture our value is subjective; it’s open to interpretation or opinion. But in Christ our identity is innate and unchanging. (For more on Christ and Culture, see the “Identity” talk I gave during Student Impact!)
So, we can begin to obey Jesus’ command to love others when we begin to recognize that everyone deserves respect for who they are as creations of God. But is it possible to command emotion? In other words, if I say to you, “Be sad,” can you make yourself sorrowful? You might be able to pretend to cry, but we are not wired for our emotions to change on command. I believe that this proves that love is more than just emotion, but also action.
James 1:22 tells us to “be doers of the word and not hearers only,” while 1 John 3:18 commands that we “not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.” Andy Stanley famously says that our decisions determine our direction. We challenged the students to think about what decisions the youth group needed to make to start heading in the direction of love and what decisions they needed to make individually.
John Ortberg once said “There is a type of love that seeks to love what seems beneficial to the lover. But there is an entirely different type of love, that of Christ, which seeks to make its object lovely, even at great cost to the lover.” Jesus is our greatest example of love, because it was he who took on the form of a human and died a horrific death on the cross to take the punishment for our sins, simply out of love.
We discussed how we want to leave the youth group able to look back on our time and see crosses that symbolize the times we’ve received or given love. Just in the two and a half months of the summer, we were able to go to Norfolk and do construction work, to go to Lynchburg to serve the Salvation Army and a center for pregnant teenagers, to come alongside each other during times of pain and confusion, and to begin building a community, in fact a family, that loves.
But love isn’t always easy. So in Sunday School we talked about how love relates to “Courage” and to “Conflict.” We talked about Daniel’s willingness to Stand Firm against his Babylonian masters in favor of being obedient to God, even if it meant he had to Stand Alone. It takes courage to Stand Strong in love. Remember that (in imitation of Christ) love is sacrifice. It is not normal in our culture to have the kind of radical love Jesus commands. And we all know the horrors of not being considered normal in middle-school or high-school. Well, at least Jen does! … Me too...
Daniel was willing to face the lion’s den for his convictions. It begs the question, what price are you willing to pay to Stand Out in love? Popularity? Time? Energy? Nothing? As we try to Stand Tall at school, at church, and at home, we need God to give us the courage to do what is hard for the sake of what is right.
We also talked about Conflict with Parents, Friends, Authority, and God and how we can show love to people we are in conflict with. Philippians 2:3 says to “in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” It is important to be humble, simply because it allows us to see others the way Christ would have us to and, more simply, to have honest and calm conversations. We challenged the students to ask who they count as more significant than themselves and who they are still struggling to love.
Romans 13:1-3 says all authority is from God. But what about bad leaders? Well I’m glad you asked! Because 1 Peter 2:18 says to even respect unjust leaders. This led to our discussion about the importance of respectfully disagreeing with those we are in conflict with. What does this mean for our conversation about love? Well, let me answer your question with another question; Can you respect someone you don’t love? Probably. But can you love someone you don’t respect? No. So to answer your question directly,our Conflict series ultimately led to the lesson that love starts with respect.
Finally, towards the end of the summer, we discussed the question, “Does love save seats?”. It seems like a simple question, but it ending up being rather confounding for students and leaders alike. Why? If you refuse a seat to someone because you are saving it for a friend, you have not shown love to that person. But if you give them the seat, you have sacrificed your friend’s seat and love should never come at the expense of others. Answers differed amongst the students and the leaders. The answer I offered up was that we should be willing to give up our own seat. But, more than that, to save extra seats in anticipation of showing love to others. In other words, Christ-like love prepares, or expects, to love.
It was an amazing experience to see the youth slowly begin to understand our teachings and actually start to apply them to their lives! I say slowly, because as Jeff says, “Students never seem to understand anything until you’re sick to death of talking about it.” Well after close to three month of exploring the concept of love and the role it plays in our community of believers, they finally started to “get it!”
Of course, as the ones who took the time and effort into preparing the lessons, Jeff, Jen, and I undoubtedly learned so much more than we were able to impart to the youth. But I’ve always said that those kids are a bigger blessing to me than I will ever be to them. To talk about everything that I learned would have to be committed to its own post entirely! But now that I’m back at CNU, I’m not sure if I’ll have the time! However, as Jen and I leave, and the new school year begins, I pray that all of us, students, leaders, and parents alike, would never cease to be amazed by the love shown to us in Christ and never stop trying to mimic that love in our homes, our schools, and with our friends.
Throughout the summer we discussed the concept of love through a variety of outlets. In Sunday School we talked about the Courage it takes to love and how to love in the midst of Conflict. During Tuesday Bible Study we split by gender and studied our greatest example of love, Jesus, in the Gospel of John. In 1-on-1 lunches and conversations we talked about the importance of being a leader and setting examples in love. But our “big guns” came out on Wednesday nights during Student Impact, where Jeff, Jen, and I could take advantage of having all the students together to really hammer home some key points about Love in Action.
We tried to capture these points in some - hopefully - rememberable “catchphrases.” Catchphrases like:
- Love is an act of the will, accompanied by emotion, which leads to action on behalf of it’s object.
- Love is Action.
- Love is Sacrifice.
- Love is as Love Does.
- How you act defines how you love.
- Apathy is easy, it requires nothing. Love is hard, it requires the courage to take action.
- Love Starts with Respect.
- Does Love Save Seats?
- Love Prepares to Love.
In Matthew 22:34-40, Jesus, answering a question from the Pharisees, tells us that the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and that the second is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Christ himself says that the greatest love is that for God, and the second greatest is that for others. Consider for a moment that magnitude of the fact that the two most important commandments an Almighty God gives us, both have to do with love! Obviously it is something we need to spend significant time thinking about!
But it begs the question, why does God deserve so much, in fact all, of our love? Revelation 4:11 tells us, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created.” God is the greatest thing in the whole world! And He knows it! And in His mercy He has decided that we can share in His greatness. It’s not egomania; it’s love!
Okay, God is perfect, but people are not, so why do we have to love everybody equally? Certainly we can’t be expected to love a bully as much as we love our friends; or our boss as much as we love our spouse. But Genesis 1:27, Psalm 139:13-14, and 1 Peter 2:9 all point to the message throughout the Bible that because we are all created by God, in the image of God, every person on the planet has innate value.
However, this message differs with how we build our identity in culture. Culture wants our worth to be defined by how immersed we are in the culture itself (It’s certainly a self-serving motivation on the part of culture!). Culture convinces us that culture is important in a number of ways. Through television, movies, etc., culture tries to convince us that our identity is dependent on the culture.
Cultural perceptions of beauty show this most clearly. Culture has convinced people to do some pretty crazy things over the years. We discussed foot-binding in China, corsets in Europe, tribal neck rings and piercings, and unrealistic thinness in today’s culture. In culture our value is subjective; it’s open to interpretation or opinion. But in Christ our identity is innate and unchanging. (For more on Christ and Culture, see the “Identity” talk I gave during Student Impact!)
So, we can begin to obey Jesus’ command to love others when we begin to recognize that everyone deserves respect for who they are as creations of God. But is it possible to command emotion? In other words, if I say to you, “Be sad,” can you make yourself sorrowful? You might be able to pretend to cry, but we are not wired for our emotions to change on command. I believe that this proves that love is more than just emotion, but also action.
James 1:22 tells us to “be doers of the word and not hearers only,” while 1 John 3:18 commands that we “not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.” Andy Stanley famously says that our decisions determine our direction. We challenged the students to think about what decisions the youth group needed to make to start heading in the direction of love and what decisions they needed to make individually.
John Ortberg once said “There is a type of love that seeks to love what seems beneficial to the lover. But there is an entirely different type of love, that of Christ, which seeks to make its object lovely, even at great cost to the lover.” Jesus is our greatest example of love, because it was he who took on the form of a human and died a horrific death on the cross to take the punishment for our sins, simply out of love.
We discussed how we want to leave the youth group able to look back on our time and see crosses that symbolize the times we’ve received or given love. Just in the two and a half months of the summer, we were able to go to Norfolk and do construction work, to go to Lynchburg to serve the Salvation Army and a center for pregnant teenagers, to come alongside each other during times of pain and confusion, and to begin building a community, in fact a family, that loves.
But love isn’t always easy. So in Sunday School we talked about how love relates to “Courage” and to “Conflict.” We talked about Daniel’s willingness to Stand Firm against his Babylonian masters in favor of being obedient to God, even if it meant he had to Stand Alone. It takes courage to Stand Strong in love. Remember that (in imitation of Christ) love is sacrifice. It is not normal in our culture to have the kind of radical love Jesus commands. And we all know the horrors of not being considered normal in middle-school or high-school. Well, at least Jen does! … Me too...
Daniel was willing to face the lion’s den for his convictions. It begs the question, what price are you willing to pay to Stand Out in love? Popularity? Time? Energy? Nothing? As we try to Stand Tall at school, at church, and at home, we need God to give us the courage to do what is hard for the sake of what is right.
We also talked about Conflict with Parents, Friends, Authority, and God and how we can show love to people we are in conflict with. Philippians 2:3 says to “in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” It is important to be humble, simply because it allows us to see others the way Christ would have us to and, more simply, to have honest and calm conversations. We challenged the students to ask who they count as more significant than themselves and who they are still struggling to love.
Romans 13:1-3 says all authority is from God. But what about bad leaders? Well I’m glad you asked! Because 1 Peter 2:18 says to even respect unjust leaders. This led to our discussion about the importance of respectfully disagreeing with those we are in conflict with. What does this mean for our conversation about love? Well, let me answer your question with another question; Can you respect someone you don’t love? Probably. But can you love someone you don’t respect? No. So to answer your question directly,our Conflict series ultimately led to the lesson that love starts with respect.
Finally, towards the end of the summer, we discussed the question, “Does love save seats?”. It seems like a simple question, but it ending up being rather confounding for students and leaders alike. Why? If you refuse a seat to someone because you are saving it for a friend, you have not shown love to that person. But if you give them the seat, you have sacrificed your friend’s seat and love should never come at the expense of others. Answers differed amongst the students and the leaders. The answer I offered up was that we should be willing to give up our own seat. But, more than that, to save extra seats in anticipation of showing love to others. In other words, Christ-like love prepares, or expects, to love.
It was an amazing experience to see the youth slowly begin to understand our teachings and actually start to apply them to their lives! I say slowly, because as Jeff says, “Students never seem to understand anything until you’re sick to death of talking about it.” Well after close to three month of exploring the concept of love and the role it plays in our community of believers, they finally started to “get it!”
Of course, as the ones who took the time and effort into preparing the lessons, Jeff, Jen, and I undoubtedly learned so much more than we were able to impart to the youth. But I’ve always said that those kids are a bigger blessing to me than I will ever be to them. To talk about everything that I learned would have to be committed to its own post entirely! But now that I’m back at CNU, I’m not sure if I’ll have the time! However, as Jen and I leave, and the new school year begins, I pray that all of us, students, leaders, and parents alike, would never cease to be amazed by the love shown to us in Christ and never stop trying to mimic that love in our homes, our schools, and with our friends.
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