This past Sunday stretched me personally and our ministry volunteers.  We had quite a few new students join us for our morning services…this is always exciting.  We had several students step up and assume leadership roles (another thing that excites me).  My wife led the worship set for the morning services.  We have four kids so this meant our kids were in Children’s ministry for two services….busy day for the little people.
Two things that stuck out to me about the Morning service were :

1.  New middle school students find it difficult to engage others.  We had a few new students that at first did not want to talk or open up.  By the time service was over they were talking with other students and the fear that was on their face was gone :)….God is good!

2.  Middle school students need to be taught to worship.  I know this sounds demeaning, but it’s not meant to be.  The plain and simple truth is that most middle school students are more worried about what the person next to them things about them than focusing on God…especially in a time of worship.  It makes me wonder if reinforcement from home in the areas of uniqueness (God designed us all in a unique manner) is needed.  My heart breaks for students…and for them to engage God in a real meaningful manner…whether that be in worship or in the study of God’s word.  This is an area that I am going to commit to prayer…join me!

Our Sunday evening service was great.  We started off with a great acoustic set of worship aimed specifically at declaring our personally affection for God. We wrapped up 1 John Chapter 1 and really spent some time talking about the basics of Christianity….the cross, blood of Christ, and fellowship with God…can it get any better than that?  During our study we really hit upon the similarities between our culture of today and the culture of Johns audience (Gnostics).  We landed on this idea that we as Christians can end up in a rut so deep that our fellowship can become non-existent, we become spiritually fat, and we end up in a place where we give God less and less time each day.  Pray that God continues to work in the lives our our students and that they will always remember the simplicity of the cross.