Welcome to our first online lesson for 2021 — and we were excited to enjoy some time in person with youth at the church tonight. We will continue to offer in-person youth each Wednesday night at 7 p.m. If you are feeling sick in any way or living with someone who is, we encourage you to participate in the online version only for the time being to help protect everyone who attends.
Last week, the online lesson focused on developing a spiritual roadmap for 2021. Within it, we shared a video from Allen Parr highlighting the importance of honestly assessing your spiritual path over the past year and making goals for the new year. Allen’s video, for those who haven’t seen it yet:
As a way to make this more real for our youth (and their parents if they’d like to participate) is via doing an online PAW Youth Survey. If you haven’t already taken it, please take a few moments to do so by clicking here.
Sally Sheets had her final treatment today of the 12-treatment course. She is scheduled to go in later in January for scanning and to see if the tumor has shrunk enough to allow surgery. Please keep her, Pastor Paul and the entire family in prayers.
Tony Jordan, who many know as the region’s police chief, is currently in critical condition at the hospital ICU with COVID. Please keep him and his entire family in prayers.
Pat and Candy Mitchell continue to improve from their COVID situations while still mourning the death of Janie. Please continue to raise them — and the entire Mitchell/Jordan family — up in prayer.
Please continue to pray for the 63 people God impacted through us over the past month via our call to service. Some in a nursing home, others struggling to make ends meet and needing food, baby items and other items. While we did what we could to fill the physical needs, we want to continue to lift them up in prayer.
If you are looking to catch up on previous online youth lessons, click here. There are a number of them. Among those lessons was our Dec. 23 look at Romans 12 … inspired via the books we gave out to youth members before Christmas and a chapter of the Bible we feel led to focus on during the new year.
A verse I continue to come back to over and over is Romans 12:11 (NIV): “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.”
The theme is one that seems to fit our youth group fairly well. We have a strong base of young people who are products of a strong kids ministry, who have shown excitement for God and committed to Him in the past. But many times, we can find ourselves drifting away from where God wants us to be. For many, the pandemic of the past year has fueled that separation or pushed some of us off track more than we’d like to admit. That is part of the reason we are encouraging all of our youth to assess their spiritual walks and develop goals to get on track.
It can be a lot like boating down a waterway where the current of current events or the unpredictability of a major life-storm ultimately can take us off track. What we need in those circumstances where things are especially active and it seems like chaos is overwhelming … is an anchor. In every situation, we should strive to make God our anchor, whether it be in day to day activities, relationships with others, etc.
Consider the visual provided by Hebrews 6:19a (NIV): “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”
Anchors are effective in keeping a boat from drifting off because they are solid, heavy and provide a strong foundation. God meets those goals in our lives if we let him. Consider what is shared in Isaiah 26:3-4 (NIV): “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.
How does the process of utilizing God as an anchor look like? When worldly temptations or distractions come our way, we should do all we can to stay grounded in God as we navigate those opportunities. A good example comes from John Cooper, the lead of the Christian rock group Skillet as he shared in a recent interview with Mike Huckabee about how influential (wordly) voices in the music industry tried to get him to veer away from sharing his faith via his music and career.
Considering John’s testimony, what influences in your life have caused you to drift in your faith … regardless of how harmless it seemed on the surface? How has COVID restrictions, illnesses, loss, etc. impacted your faith and led you astray? What is the best way to protect yourself from those sort of negative influences in the future?
The answer … by getting closer to your anchor. Imagine a helium balloon attached to an anchor. When the winds pick up around the balloon, it can veer off true center easier the longer the string is between the balloon and the anchor. Shorten the string until the balloon is tethered directly to the anchor, and it won’t veer off track as much. We did a game based on that concept at in-person youth:
Returning to Skillet, the group, a semi-recent song from them is titled, aptly, “Anchor.” We will close with that this week, and if you have prayer needs or want to talk about how you feel you’ve veered from God’s path please don’t hesitate to reach out to Michelle or myself.
