TBC Youth Group

Due to lack of time to plan anything else, we decided to do a movie night, and get some pizza. And it’s a good thing too, because Odele and Kaitlyn weren’t able to make it, so it was just David and Diana as leaders—if we’d done anything more strenuous, we wouldn’t have been able to handle it!

We had three movies to choose from (Crossover, Bend it Like Beckham, and Roll Bounce), and it wasn’t until after we got back to the church, movies in hand, that we realized they were all sports movies (basketball, soccer, and roller skating, in that order). They decided on Crossover.

David ordered pizza, and then we started the movie (later than we would have liked). And, surprisingly, everyone came up to watch the movie; the guys didn’t even have to be forced to leave the basketball behind. (Maybe because it’s a movie about basketball?) When the pizza arrived, we paused the movie to dig in, and then David led the devotion, which was on Matthew 8:5–13. David made the following points about this passage:

• For most of Jesus’ ministry, his miracles were performed on Jewish people, but there were a couple of exceptions, like this one. But whenever Jesus healed a non-Jewish person—at least, as far as David can remember—he also made a point of talking about how much faith they had. He was willing to make an exception to his rule, to make the point about how important faith is.
• Jesus also mentions that many Jews will not come to faith, even though many people who are not Jewish will. Similarly, you can’t judge who is going to become a real Christian from outward appearances; many people who have attended church all their lives still have not accepted Jesus as their saviour, whereas someone who has never been to church can hear the gospel and come to a saving faith immediately.

We turned the movie back on, and finished it. And then, since David was the only leader present who had a car, it took twice as long as usual to ferry everyone home.

Kaitlyn’s profile coming soon…

This was our first Youth Group after the summer break, so of course, it was a planning meeting. There were very few kids there, compared to last year, so when 7:30 rolled around we decided to just go ahead and start planning, and not wait any longer.

We went until around 8:00, and then David wanted to start the devotion. But when he went downstairs, to grab a couple of stragglers, he was surprised to find a dozen guys down there, playing basketball. They had apparently come into the church without us knowing, and started a game. So we brought them upstairs, and did the devotion.

David did the devotion, and we talked about Matthew 14:13–21, and Matthew 15:29–39. David mentioned the following:

• In the Matthew 15 passage, Jesus asks the disciples to feed the people, and the disciples tell Jesus that there is not enough food—even though they’ve already seen Jesus perform a miracle, which fed more people with less food. David suggested that this is not because the disciples are stupid, but because it’s a natural human tendency to not have faith in God, even when He has been reliable to us in the past.
• David also wondered aloud why Jesus bothered to perform the miracle in this way. Why not simply “zap” the people, and take away their hunger? David suggested that Jesus wanted to make it obvious that this was a miracle, so that the people would give God the glory. If he had simply zapped their hunger away, it would have been easy for the people to dismiss it—“we must not have been that hungry in the first place,” or, “we must be imagining things”—but by performing the miracle in this way, there was no way the people could deny what was happening: they began with very little food, and still somehow managed to feed everyone and have leftovers.

After the devotion, we played Boneyard until it was time to go.

We left not knowing what we’d be doing next week; David will have to put a schedule together, based on the suggestions for events, and let everyone know.