From Sampler to Sower

Careful boys, we don't want that going off in here!

In our fourth sermon of our True Love Waits series, we mix things up a bit with a surprise pop quiz. Given the format, we don’t have outlines to pass out, so no PDF files to download, but there are plenty of memorable visual aids involved, so your students won’t need notes to remember what you talked about.

As you prepare for this lesson, make sure you have a roll of duct tape, a short sleeve shirt, a sex bomb and a good healthy length of waterproof cannon fuse…

After the jump we’ll let you know what to do with it all.  And as usual, there is sermon audio of this lesson from our 2010 True Love Waits series at the end as well.

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In the third lesson of True Love Waits, we attempt to correct a common problem to purity series. Specifically, I’ve noticed it’s common to pay a lot of attention to the waiting part, but not spend much time even considering the issue of true love. Yet it’s true love that we believe is worth waiting for.  So what do we know about true love.

I start teaching this lesson by showing the scene from Princess Bride in which Inigo and Fezzik take what turns out to be a mostly dead Westley to Miracle Max in hopes of a resurrection pill.  Max proves skeptical and refuses to act for anything less than a noble cause.  When he puts the question (and a few billows of air) to Westley, Westley replies “true love.”

Max eventually acknowledges:

Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world…except for a nice MLT – mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe.

And the Bible agrees.

Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of one’s house for love,
it would be utterly scorned. (Song of Solomon 8:7, NIV)

After the jump we’ll talk a bit more about this incredible gift of love, as well as what happens when we despise the gift by trading it to satisfy carnal desires.  You’ll find a summary of our sermon, as well as our fill-in-the-blanks outline for the lesson, and sermon audio of the lesson taught live.

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In week two of our True Love Waits series we address the very prevalent problem of pornography that our students face.  The goal of the lesson is to challenge them to see through the myth that someone pornography will leave them more knowledgeable and more experienced, and as a result better lovers.  Instead we hope to help them see that pornography may, in fact, sabotage their hopes for a healthy sex life later in life.

This may seem like a bit of a backwards approach to the subject.  And really it is, at least according to our normal way of teaching.  Typically we start with Scripture and work from there.  But we find that students already know deep down that looking at pornography is wrong.  And yet they do it anyway.  They don’t need us to prove to them that pornography is wrong.  They need us to help them see that it is not only wrong, but also harmful.

After the jump you’ll find a summary of our sermon on the subject, as well as the fill-in-the-blank outline we use and audio from this sermon, as preached as part of our 2010 series.

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As I mentioned in a post a few years back, every three years our youth group features a special series called True Love Waits. Actually, I said we did it every two years, but we have since transitioned to a three year cycle.  The goal remains the same, to make sure we emphasize this subject and give every student the opportunity to make a True Love Waits pledge during their Junior High years.  We’ve transitioned to a once-every-three cycle because we’ve also transitioned from a 7 & 8 to a 6-8 Junior High ministry.

Recently some colleagues on my district have asked me to share the resources from this series so they can have a look at what we do.  And so I’m posting these here, not just to archive them for myself, but to make sharing them easier.

Today, after the jump, you’ll find the information we make available to parents at our parent’s meeting at the start of the series.  And in upcoming posts this week you’ll find the rest of the resources from the five week teaching series.

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The Title Slide from Sunday's Message

This Sunday our church tried something different.  That in and of itself would be enough for me to love our church — we have no problem at all trying something new.  However, in the famous words of Ed Valenti, “But wait. There’s more!”

Pastor Phil Rogers spent all week telling people they did not want to be late for church this Sunday because something was in the works that has never happened at our church.  And we could tell something was different from the first moment we entered the sanctuary.  The customary greeters met us at the doors and handed us a packet of sermon notes that had been sealed, along with a stern warning not to open the folder until we were instructed to do so.

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Your Peek Behind the Curtain

Okay, this is a new one for me.  I don’t know how, or even if, this will work, but I’m going to give it a shot.

You, dear reader, are hereby offered a All-Access Backstage Pass to our youth ministry’s creative process.  We’re bringing you backstage, and inviting you to check out what’s going on behind the curtain.

Of course, that means you’re getting a glimpse of a work in progress and not the finished product.  As such, this post, and others like it will probably be rambling and scatterbrained, big on ideas, short -at least at first- on actual implementation.

As you know if you are following my weekly updates, our youth ministry is currently in a teaching series called Mythbusters.  It’s set to conclude on Tuesday, February 17th, following our final three lessons focused on Faith, Hope and Love.  That means we’re just under one month out on our next series – high time to get working on what’s next.

Next on the teaching schedule is a Lenten series, culminating, like most Lenten seasons, with an Easter celebration.  Our teaching will be guided by the Lectionary’s epistle readings.

My goal, every Lent, is to very intentionally challenge students to develop the daily disciplines which will ground their faith in an ever deepening relationship with the God whose name they claim.  That’s not to say that during Epiphany I attempt to help they develop a superficial version of Christianity that only affects their Sunday mornings and Tuesday nights – it’s just that Lent provides an intentional time every year to teach them to focus on the presence of God in every part of their life.

And so, I find myself wondering what we will do this year to help move us toward this goal.

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Tim Schmoyer at Life in Student Ministry got me thinking recently.  One of his (and my) favorite posts is his article 100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write About.  And in that list of ideas for youth ministry bloggers is this nugget at #25: “Sermon presentations versus small group discussion Bible studies.”  That got me thinking about why I do what I do.  Our backbone event is built around the preaching of the Word.  Preaching is central to our youth ministry and the essential core of my calling.

Then again, I don’t know that “versus” is necessarily the right word.  There is a place for both small group discussions and sermon presentations in youth ministry, and both take place as a part of our youth ministry at Water’s Edge.  But they aren’t the same, and – truth be told – if you told me I could only do one or the other, I would choose to preach.

I believe in preaching

Of course such a blanket statement then begs the question “why?”

I’m so glad you asked.

There is a unique and spiritual power that comes with the preaching of God’s Word.  If you don’t believe me, all I need to do is point you to some of the greatest sermons ever preached.  Take for example my favorite sermon of all time, Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” sermon.

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