Weekend Teaching Series: GROW
Sermon in a Sentence: As we grow up physically, emotionally, and socially, we also need to grow spiritually and put ourselves in a position to allow God to transform our lives.
Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 3 out of 10
Service Length: 72 minutes
Understandable Message: Jason Petty, our pastor of discipleship, mixed things up a bit and challenged students with a message devoted to showing the importance of growing spiritually. Because all healthy things grow, the goal of our spiritual growth is to look more like Jesus. However, growing spiritually is difficult without a teachable heart, which God will give us if we are willing. We have to put ourselves in that position to see God. Petty gave students deep truths to think over and made sure there were a ton of resources available to for students to grab after the service.
Volunteer/Student Involvement: Students ran cameras, lights and sound. Volunteers also greeted and did setup/cleanup.
Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We aired a video Jake recorded on how to approach HSM, including how to walk, how to take a bulletin and pen, and how to interact with the greeters. Fun! Also, we had a “Bible Ninja” video where students gave an infomercial for Bible Institute and expressed how much they wanted to understand the Bible, but could never seem to do it. Exciting and hopefully thought provoking!
Music Playlist: Surrender, This Is My Desire, Center
Favorite Moment: During his message, Jason made sure to not play the guilt card on students as to why they need to grow with Christ. He shared a story that continually made him spiritually guilty on how Jesus was waiting in a coffee shop and crying because we forget to spend time with him. Instead, Jason compared meeting with Jesus as the excitement and passion of how we interact with the guy or girl we “really like” and how our pursuit of that person drives us to want to communicate and get to know that person better and deeper.
(This report was written by the amazing summer-intern Kyle Cleveland, I was gone this weekend to do a wedding)