The Difference

Last night at youth I had the opportunity to lead the message for the first time ever in my life. To say that I was a little nervous was an understatement, but I made it through alright and no one got hurt so that was good. A few months back I bought a cd by a band named Philmont, and on it was a song titled "The Difference." I always thought that this would make a good little message and a few weeks ago I had a tugging on my heart that "hey you need to talk about this to the youth" so I finally got the courage to ask Pink if it was ok to lead youth some week and he agreed and the rest is history. The song and my message was about how when we give our lives to Christ there has to be and should be a difference in them, meaning if you used to go out and party on the weekends before you gave your life to Christ then after you shouldn't still live like that. One of the lines in the song says "I've tried so hard to mix the old life with the new, but there's no in between if I'm gonna follow You."

I was nervous during Jr. High youth mainly because I've never done this and I only knew a handful of the students. When High School youth was starting and there were about 3 times as many students I was thinking I'm really gonna be nervous with that many people in there but actually the opposite happened and I was more relaxed for that, maybe because I had the first time speaking out of the way or maybe because I know almost all of those students. Either way it was enjoyable and maybe I'll get to do it again.

One thing I'll leave you with and it was something I told the students to think about is a quote from Brennan Manning, author of Ragamuffin Gospel which states "The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." Pink was able to share some of this firsthand after I was finished of his experiences with a relative who would agree with that quote 100% and I firmly believe that when PK and Pink get The Branches of Escondido up and running, Pink's cousin will come to know Christ as his personnal saviour through the work that God is going to do through those 2 and all those who are joining them.