this week was a bit different and was incredibly full. We had decided to do an “off series”night from The Story. The planning was more fluid that desired as we were trying to track down one of our alumns who ran the Boston Marathon. Jace Wolford is a Jr. at MVNU studying nursing (btw -he was a stellar student in Mrs. Roepke’s – Pastor Tom’s wife – Health Tech class at the Career Center).
This week the thought was to leverage the conversation about being a “Daniel” as we talked about the well know stories of the Lion’s Den and the Fiery furnace. And didn’t want to miss things that were useful from the legacy of Lady Thatcher and her state funeral that had happened earlier in the day.
So going with plan B because we hadn’t connected directly with Jace to make a conversation work. We elevated the fun element with a new game from our pal Chad at youth leader stash called the “big spoon”. wanted something a little messy as we hadn’t gone there in awhile. this fit nicely.
jon barton and maddy haggerty during the big spoon.
we stepped off in the teaching time with this great video to prime the mind to begin to think about how students should lead.
Pastor Tom (with a bit more hair) and Lady Thacher and Lady Thatcher meeting Pastor Tom’s daughter Sarah and wife Melinda.
which then led in to Pastor Tom talking about the privilege he had over a 5 year period to host Lady Margaret Thatcher at events around the state. He shared some memories and then invited Georgia Kauffman (mom to Toby one of our jr. highers) to join him as she was a student when Thatcher visited AU in ’93.
Together they reflected on Lady Thatcher’s many accomplishments and one in particular – being the first female prime minister of England and how she changed many things politically because of her beliefs.
The tie-in for the students on this night was an interesting aspect of the State funeral proceedings earlier in the day in London. Of all the individuals, literally in the world, Thatcher had asked that her 19 year old granddaughter Amanda have a prominent role to play by reading Scripture. In fact beyond the current Prime Minister David Cameron and the Bishop of London, Amanda was the only other person to say something. Something very incredible. Here’s the video of that…
The big idea beyond Amanda being the granddaughter, was a reflection of how Thatcher viewed the importance of youth. And in this case, the Scripture reading from Ephesians 6:10-18 (putting on the whole armor of God) are incredibly encouraging words that we wanted our EVO students to hear and think about. Particularly in light of the events on Monday at the Boston Marathon.
And found it encouraging that in the web reports of Amanda’s place at the funeral that not too long ago she was voted by her classmates as “Most Likely to Change the World”. Something we desire deeply for our EVO students.
We sent the students off to small groups to talk about them being a modern day Daniel.
And is was about that time that Jace rang and said he was available. So as we gathered back together we had the students sit down in front of the computer and had a sobering and yet encouraging conversation with Jace about how the events of the bombing on Monday has changed his view of life…and his place in God’s story. The sobering reality of his having probably run past the bombs just prior to the explosion has altered his journey.
“…made me realize how blessed I am and that I know more than ever that God isn’t done with me…He has a plan for me.” ~jace wolford
Yep…it was a very good night. thought it a blessing too that Jace participated in our closing prayer circle via Skype. leveraging technology for the Kingdom.
