"Do Something"

Hello all!  Pastor Mike here and I'm back to fill you in on what's been going on @ the Naz on Wednesday nights.  We are in the middle of a new 4-week series entitled "Do Something." This week we are on week 3 of the series and the theme is "Comforting the Afflicted, and Afflicting the Comfortable."  The first two weeks of the series focused on "Noticing Needs" and "Overcoming Numbness"...both very powerful topics. 

This series stemmed from the idea that we often become complacent in our Christian walks and are easily overtaken by selfishness and laziness.  Personally, there have been many times that I have become overly comfortable in my spiritual journey and it ends up with me being content with "going through the motions."  The point of this series is to open our eyes to the fact that Jesus is NOT content with us merely going through the motions of what we label "Christianity," but rather He calls us to Do Something with our faith.  If our faith is the driving force of our life, in which we find our purpose, then it should only make sense that we should be doing great things outside of ourselves for Christ constantly. 

We also introduced a new idea for our youth group called the Port Naz Big Give.  (We have modeled this after Oprah's popular television show that used to be on TV).  We challenged our students to come up with ideas for helping: others, corporations, families, churches, etc. that they were passionate about and submit their goal of: $$ wanted to be raised, events/projects to help raise the money/supplies, and research as to why this idea is so important to them.  Our hope is that students will submit their ideas to us when this series comes to a close, then students will be voting on the one Big Give project that we will fully support and take on as a youth group for the summer months.  If this first Big Give works out, we would love to do 2 or 3 throughout the year on a continual basis.  The point is not to make everything we do about the Big Give, but rather open a door for students to start giving and helping others outside of themselves.  Ultimately, the point is to make "Big Gives" a normal part of our everyday life in following Christ and not just a once-a-year event!

So I'll leave you with a few questions that we have been wrestling with in our small groups...

  -Are you're eyes really open to the needs around you?  If not, what is it that is blurring or blocking your vision?

-What is your purpose for following Christ?  Is the focus on your own status or well-being...or...Is the focus healing the broken, feeding the hungry, helping the poor, and seeing those in need around you?

-Would you say that you are comforting the afflicted, or needing to be afflicted because you are too comfortable?

I pray that you can wrestle with these tough questions just as your students and youth leaders have been! =)

Please continue to pray for our leaders as we pour time and energy into your students.  Have a blessed week!