Pastor Ben's Blog
1 John 4:12 the apostle writes, "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

This passage has stuck with me now for more than a year. Sometimes it felt like a small stone in my shoe and other times like a fire in my heart. When it felt like a stone that was because I was feeling convicted by a question I could not escape, “Am I, or the students in our youth ministry, experiencing the love of God being made complete in us?” In my heart I truly was not sure. That has bothered me consistently for a year. In order to experience the fullness of the love of God we must love one another. As I began to examine scripture as to what that looks like, I found that loving one another has a lot to do with sacrifice and seeing needs and meeting them (service). When I held that measuring stick up to both myself and our students I found us lacking.

Now, when that scripture felt like a fire burning in my soul is when I began to imagine what I and our youth ministry would look like if we were actively sacrificing for one another through service to each other and the community around us. In my heart I see students experiencing the fullness of the love of God by giving it away when they come to church and in their daily lives.

I’ve been seeking God for a couple months now as to how we can see all of this become a reality.

I am honestly not sure what it will look like for us, but to start we are going to begin enlisting students who want to serve in some creative projects like mentoring orphans, helping widows and writing persecuted Christians who have been wrongfully imprisoned in foreign countries. After that I’m not sure. We are teaching about service every week and challenging students to ask God to give them an idea as to how they can help show God’s love to someone else.

We’ll be getting as much information to you as we have as to how these love projects will work. For now what you can do is pray for our youth and youth leaders as we navigate these new exciting waters. Also, ask God to speak to your student/s and put a fire in their heart to love one another.