So apparently Mother Nature doesn't feel as if it is necessary for our Foundation Open House to meet and start our Bible Study on the exciting topic of Sex and Dating...
I have decided to blog about it instead..
A confession: I know NOTHING about dating.
An observation: I am not sure if teenagers have great examples in society of what a positive dating life should look like.
A question (or two): How do we even begin to start talking about dating? What is dating?
I think we start talking about relationships before we start talking about dating.
Relationships are key to life. God pretty much spells that out for us in Genesis 2:18 "The Lord God said, "its not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.". God does not intend for us to be alone. We are called to be in relationship with each other AND most importantly we are called be in relationship with the Lord.
The problem is I think we try to keep those two relationships separate. Its as if we draw a line in the middle of our hearts. One side of our heart is for those that are in relationship with us (friends, family, dating partners, spouses, etc) and the other side is reserved for the love we have for God. I feel like most of us get in the trap of running around like chickens with our heads cut off (LOVE that visual) finding meaningful relationships to fill up one side of our hearts.. and we use the God side as a reserve. We focus on our friendships, families, and romantic relationships... and when those relationships are in distress or non existent.... we struggle until hopefully we remember that God loves us too.
I would like to be bold enough to say that maybe we all (adults and teenagers alike) should rip the tape that divides our hearts and allow God's love to flow over to our other relationships. We shouldn't love others AND love God.. we should love others BECAUSE of our love for God.
Mark 12:28-30
28 One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. 30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. 31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’No other commandment is greater than these.”
This scripture doesn't say "Love your neighbor and when you get bored or disengaged, go ahead and love God with your left overs". This scripture is a commandment. Its up there with don't murder and don't steal. The creator of love commands us to not only love him, but love others the same way.
No joke as I am writing this blog entry John Mayer's famous song "Half of my Heart" is playing in the background. This song is just an instant reminder of loving with half of your heart. We are asked to love God with our whole heart.. not a divided heart. Don't put Gods love off into a reserve pile.. but instead allow God's love to empower you to love others. What would your family look like if you loved them the way God loves you? What kind of friendships would you have if you only loved your friends with the intensity that God loves you? Just imagine what Jersey Shore hook ups would look like if the "grenades" were treated with the same amount of grace and love that God invests in you? (ya... I just made a Jersey Shore reference). Love starts with God... don't let it end with you. Love with all of your strength... in fact use all of your strength and focus to love and not to stress out if you are going to find "mr. or mrs. right"... or even a valentines date. Invest love into yourself. You are worth it.
A confession: all relationships are not perfect..and many of my dating relationships from my past (actually all of them) were not based off of God's love
An observation: I believe and have witnessed God's amazing grace and love at work when I love him with all of my heart and allow his love to spill over to all of the other relationships in my life.
A question: are you willing to risk it? Youth, are you willing to not date or have fewer friends if that means that the relationships you are in are based off of loving God with all of your strength and ALL of your heart? Adults, are we ready to look at the relationships in our own lives (including our relationship with Christ) and be honest with ourselves about where our love is divided ?
Lord, I pray that you help us today and everyday to love with our whole heart and all of our strength...and allow your love to overflow onto other relationships in our lives.
Amen.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Sex and Dating Series
This week Foundation Student Ministries is about to undertake one of THE MOST IMPORTANT and critical topics of discussion and focus.... Sex and Dating.
This focus has been in the works for quite a while and has been wrapped in prayer for over 3 months. Every day I am reminded about the stress and pressure that surrounds our students on this topic. If you don't believe me.. all you need to do is read their Facebook walls, observe their actions, or sit down and have an honest conversation with them.
We will start this Wednesday with a look at Boundaries and what they mean. I have been offering a Sunday School class for the past two weeks for parents to learn about the curriculum covered during this series. The first week we had 4 parents, yesterday we had 1. I will continue to offer this sunday school class for the next two weeks... because I feel this topic is way too important to back down. I would like to strongly encourage all parents to join me for the next two weeks as we discuss girl issues and guy issues. I have a committed group of 10 youth sponsors who are excited and ready to support and listen to the youth of our community as they discuss these topics on Wednesday nights. I am constantly hearing an undertone from teenagers that they feel that nobody is listening to them or hearing what they have to say. To those amazing and brave individuals I would like to say... "We are ready to listen".
I am asking for prayer for our students, parents, youth sponsors, and myself as we intentionally take a look at what is going on in our society and hearts of our teenagers. I will be blogging through out the next four weeks and have suggested activities and prayer focuses that will help parents and youth take an honest took at what effect Sex and Dating is having in their lives.
Please feel free to contact me via.. email, text, call, Facebook, or any other form of communication if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, insights, or topics you think I should cover regarding this topic.
Ways to contact me:
email: amanda@fumcwax.com
text/call: 817-455-9640
facebook: Amanda Sargent
Below are the meeting times for both youth and parents:
Parents:
Sunday February 13 - issues for guys
Sunday February 20 - Issues for girls
**Both of these classes are held at 9:45 in the upstairs of our main building room 215
Youth:
Wednesday February 9th - boundaries
WEdnesday February 16th - role of dating
Wednesday February 23rd - issues for guys
Wednesday March 2nd - issues for girls
-Amanda <><
This focus has been in the works for quite a while and has been wrapped in prayer for over 3 months. Every day I am reminded about the stress and pressure that surrounds our students on this topic. If you don't believe me.. all you need to do is read their Facebook walls, observe their actions, or sit down and have an honest conversation with them.
We will start this Wednesday with a look at Boundaries and what they mean. I have been offering a Sunday School class for the past two weeks for parents to learn about the curriculum covered during this series. The first week we had 4 parents, yesterday we had 1. I will continue to offer this sunday school class for the next two weeks... because I feel this topic is way too important to back down. I would like to strongly encourage all parents to join me for the next two weeks as we discuss girl issues and guy issues. I have a committed group of 10 youth sponsors who are excited and ready to support and listen to the youth of our community as they discuss these topics on Wednesday nights. I am constantly hearing an undertone from teenagers that they feel that nobody is listening to them or hearing what they have to say. To those amazing and brave individuals I would like to say... "We are ready to listen".
I am asking for prayer for our students, parents, youth sponsors, and myself as we intentionally take a look at what is going on in our society and hearts of our teenagers. I will be blogging through out the next four weeks and have suggested activities and prayer focuses that will help parents and youth take an honest took at what effect Sex and Dating is having in their lives.
Please feel free to contact me via.. email, text, call, Facebook, or any other form of communication if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, insights, or topics you think I should cover regarding this topic.
Ways to contact me:
email: amanda@fumcwax.com
text/call: 817-455-9640
facebook: Amanda Sargent
Below are the meeting times for both youth and parents:
Parents:
Sunday February 13 - issues for guys
Sunday February 20 - Issues for girls
**Both of these classes are held at 9:45 in the upstairs of our main building room 215
Youth:
Wednesday February 9th - boundaries
WEdnesday February 16th - role of dating
Wednesday February 23rd - issues for guys
Wednesday March 2nd - issues for girls
-Amanda <><
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