Untitled Sermon (3)

Even throughout this time in Canada I believe God has been nurturing a desire to return to Bermuda and to minister back here. In the past year and a half there have been many conversations with God, friends and family on what that might look like. And in the midst of this I think God was continuing to fire up a passion deep inside us for ministry here at home. After spending a number of years ministering to Youth I know God has tethered my heart to that ministry. There are so many students who need to know the love of Jesus, who need to know that He has a plan for them and desires for them to give their lives to him. And in general Bermuda has so much potential, this is really a sending ground for students and adults into the world.

And I really love the passage that was read this morning . For me it speaks to the heart that I have for ministry. I love the writings of Paul in general because he hits to the heart of the things that was going on in the lives of the people he was writing to and some 2000 years later are still the things that we have going on in our lives today. And the part that speaks to me is, “I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” This passage shakes me to my core in that I don’t want the church to be resolute in staying the same and seeing the world and the culture around it change. And my heart for ministry is to see the church step into the world and into the culture, to understand the pressures that our students, families and friends are facing to be able to help them to navigate what that looks like in a Christian context. In some way for us to adapt our message and approach for the culture to show people that the gospel speaks in and through all of that. And that no matter what they’ve done and who they are that Jesus loves them and wants them. But in doing this making sure we don’t compromise the gospel. Cause the gospel stays the same, but how we share it can and should be changed.

This is a topic that my student ministry team talks about regularly, prays through regularly, as we ask ourselves the question, “How can we present the gospel, how can we present Jesus in a way that is relevant and understandable to our students and what they are facing in their day to day lives”.

My heart for ministry is also for the church to step into the lives of the people around us in a meaningful way, in a way that captivates them and allows them to know and understand that a life with Jesus is exactly what they need. You know one of the things I’ve learned is that the students that we have in our ministries at this point in time feel more lonely and isolated than ever, which is a product of age that we are in with media and technology. And because of this loneliness we’ve found that they desperately want relationships with people, they want people to notice them, to take an interest in them, to try to understand who they are. And I’ve found the church to be an amazing place for this. In November I took a group of Jr. High students to a Retreat at the local Bible Camp in BC. And we were able to get 14 students to sign up, which was great we were so thrilled. One young lady in the group showed up for the first time the Thursday night of youth where we were doing final signups. And her guardian, who I realized was a foster parent, was a believer and she just wanted this young lady to get some experiences in a Christian community. This foster mom shared with me, not in detail, that this young lady comes from a tough situation and she’s been pretty closed off. I tell you the change in this young lady over the 3 days of camp was extraordinary. As she spent time with the rest of the kids and us leaders at camp she really came alive. It was so awesome to witness this. And over the following weeks at Jr Youth she’s developed better relationships with the girls in her small group, she really taken to her small group leader and I feel she’s so close to accepting Jesus as her Lord and Saviour. And I’ve seen stories just like this over my time in ministry, students who just needed an opportunity to be seen.

I also believe wholeheartedly that discipleship is a key rhythm of ministry. I’ve learned that for us to develop students and adults who love God and who will be prepare for a life of faith, with its up and downs, they need solid discipleship. Someone to be actively stepping into their lives and seeing where they are at in their walk with Jesus, bearing their burdens with them, asking them the hard questions of life. I’ve seen the importance of this in my own life and I’ve seen the impact of this in ministry. This I believe is the essence of the Great Commission to go and make disciples, which isn’t a one off they are done,

Community is also an aspect of ministry that I feel is so important to develop. One of my roles over the last year was to be our Life Group coordinator in Sicamous. To organize and to encourage people to join a group that will meet throughout the week to study the bible together and to do life together. We originally started off with 2 groups that had probably about 20 people in them. This quickly grew to 6 groups with over 70 people in a groups. Even after we had started up the groups I had people coming up to me to get plugged into a Life Group, to get connected into a group of people to grow with. I really believe that God’s heart is for us to be in community with one another and you see it when he says not to neglect meeting together as some and in the habit of doing. You see it in Jesus’ ministry when we gathers the community of disciples together to learn and grow.

For sake of time I’ll end here. But I’ve learned over the last few years is that many students who really do want to know who Jesus is, they desire to understand how they can live a life that is pleasing to Him in a world that continually says that Jesus is irrelevant. And I’ve learned than an important method of seeing this take shape is through ministering to and through families, linking generations together and creating an atmosphere where students can ask questions. My youth team over the last semester read this book together called “Faith for Exiles” by Dan Kinnman and Mark Matlock and they hit the nail on the head when they write, “We discovered that people don’t learn to follow Jesus simply by having lots of great head knowledge about him (although having the right beliefs matters). Experiencing Jesus is found along a relational pathway with family, friends, and other people who love and experience Jesus”.

And if we can link people together under the gospel I truly believe that we can see growth in our community. We can see lives changed for the better. We can see students and families go into their workplaces ready to face the challenges brought on them, to see them stand for what is right. And I’d end with Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians in that my desire and what I hope all our desire is when we step into doing any sort of ministry is to “Do it all for the sake of the gospel, that we might share with them with the people we minister to in its blessings”.

Let’s Pray