A very interesting phenomenon has been occurring on a weekly basis at Sugar Grove.
I teach the Juniors and Seniors of our youth group, and thankfully we’ve been supplied with (generally) very good curriculum courtesy of the good people at Simply Youth Ministry. Every week a new lesson pops up, I download it, edit it, print it, and away we go. It takes a lot of the stress out of planning and, especially when I’m teaching in a classroom during the week, means one less “lesson plan” to deal with.
However, every so often, I’ll look at the guide for the week and just won’t feel it. It’s either a weird lesson or a stretch or a gross misuse of Scripture–one of my giant pet peeves–and so we move along to plan B: my brain. Every time, since we’ve moved back, that I’ve come up with a lesson off the top of my head the sermon has matched it. Every. Time. It’s kind of amazing. I told Mark about it this morning and we both laughed about how cool God is…when He wants something done, He comes out in full force through His Spirit.
Today’s sermon/lesson topic was essentially about dreaming big. Mark’s was focused on building bridges to the surrounding communities, and mine was about building bridges within our youth group. We have to be willing, as a group of believers joined together in community, to throw off the shackles of convention and hope for the absolute best case scenario in all that we do. I challenged the Jrs/Srs to dream big for the summer: what can we do, as a youth group, to make this the most exciting and engaging thing we do all week? How do we immerse ourselves in the community and the Spirit to the point where “Next Sunday just can’t get here fast enough?” And then the next step: how do we make it a daily thing, not just Sunday/Wednesday? It wasn’t much of a conversation–the kids aren’t really big into, you know, talking–but I hope the seeds were planted for a bright and exciting summer.
We musn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger.
Breakfast–Chocolate chip cherry torte Larabar. It was good stuff…held me over until lunch. And yes, we’re out of bananas.
Lunch–Guru Burgers! I had a regular Japaneiro burger, which is essentially a 6 oz patty with chimichurri sauce, plantains, caramelized onions, lettuce, and an egg twist bun. It needed a kick of heat and some acid, but it was good stuff. The funny thing about Guru is that they have such a solid concept, but there’s always one or two things wrong. Perfect burger, except this. Great fries, just need to add this. That crepe was excellent, but I’d switch this for this. They need someone to come in and give them guidance. And if they’re reading this, I’M TOTALLY AVAILABLE.
Dinner–Life Groups! We had pizza. And cupcakes. So…it was healthy? Happy Birthday Abby Mathis!
My starter appears to be wounded, potentially to a fatal extent. I’ll keep working on it, but…yeah.
Have a good one.