Last Wednesday, Derry, at the end of the message portion, offered students the opportunity to respond, by standing, to their recognition of what God was doing in their heart. Many stood in response to the two different opportunities, whether that was to accept a relationship with Him for the first time or to reaffirm a relationship and not the standards of religion. Afterward, I had a leader ask me how to revisit the night, and those decisions, in their small group the next week. I gave her three pointers.
- The Past: Revisit Where They Have Been- To stand before your peers and recognize God’s effort to draw us in is a huge step in the life of a high school student. Having a student retrace where they have been and the trajectory they were on allows a student the opportunity to put into words the “mess” that they were found in. This is not an effort to condemn that student, but to realize the place and situation that God has “saved” them from. To recognize the majesty in their own depravity.
- The Present: Describe What Happened to Cause Them To Stand- Describing the situation gives them the opportunity to critically think through their decision. Not in an effort to nit-pick the decision and cause a student to doubt what took place. But to process the things that were going on inside of them. Help them isolate their feelings*, thoughts, reaction to truth. In the end, this will help them separate those things when they are listening for the voice of God again. (*This becomes critical in today’s society. Look for a post on this in the coming weeks.)
- The Future: Plot a New Desired Path- Even if this is just, “I want to do what God wants for me in my life,”-type of response, this will open the door to something new for this student. The reality is, their trajectory in life has now changed. While they may not be able to specifically put it into words (truthfully, it is probably better that they cannot) what it is that they want to do, the desire for their trajectory to be in response to this new found relationship is the critical piece. The only way for them to describe their trajectory like that is for them to express it in their own words.
Just some thoughts on how to go about it. The reality is, you are connected to them. You are going to have a better grasp on how to engage them. However, we live in a day and age when flippant responses are more normal than atypical, and feeling-driven decisions are commonplace and not a rarity. Critically thinking through decisions will help prepare your students for a life-long faith based in their own critical thinking.
