Hey gang, so this is the first post of Summitable, our new Summit Student Ministry blog. The purpose of this blog is to offer a quick recap of our messages on Wednesday nights so that you can look back and reflect on messages you've heard or catch up on messages you may have missed. I know a lot of our students have been missing every message because of Covid-19, and that's just not okay with me. So I hope you find this blog helpful, fun, and to use a more scholarly term, edifying! That said, let's get rambling!
We kicked off this year with an introduction to the year's theme - WHY. While questions beginning with "who", "what", "where", and "when" tend to be functional questions, "why" is an inspirational question - it gets at the motivations behind the other questions. "Who am I?" Michael Spatz. "Why am I?" Ok, that's a much deeper question. Haha. "What am I doing?" Writing a blog post. "Why am I doing it?" My motivation is to help my students understand the messages better and be able to go back and remember what we've talked about in the past. Do you see?
Most of the time, we ask questions like "Who is God?" "What is Christianity?" "What does the Bible say about this or that?" This year, we want to go a little farther, asking questions like "Why should I believe in God?" "Why should I believe Christianity is right?" and "Why should I believe the Bible?" Of course, we will get into some of the whats and hows, but the focus right now is on the whys - not just WHAT we believe, but WHY we believe it.
If you are anything like me then you might find it a lot easier to do something or follow someone when you know WHY you're doing it or WHY you're following them. For example, when driving there is this sometimes annoying rule that you have to stay on the right side of the double yellow lines. If that is all you knew about the double yellow lines, you might be tempted to stray to the left side. BUT, I think we all know WHY we are supposed to stay on the right - there are cars going the other way on the far side of the lines! If we cross them, more than likely we are going to get hit. Because I know this, I stay on the right. Make sense?
Well, our God is a God of order and logic - He built our world to function the way that it does and He has given us everything we need to know Him, to follow Him, and to obey what He has said is right. He doesn't ask for blind faith, but has given us valid reasons to believe in Him (we will be exploring some of these reasons later).
For now, let me answer just one "why" question: Why do we have a message time during Summit (Youth Group)? The message time is a chance to learn just a little bit more about God, our faith, and how to live together on this earth. My hope is that each message challenges you to seek God, encourages you in your walk with Him, and offers some ideas for how you can live the right way (God's way).
I want this year to be full of asking questions and pursuing the answers together. This year, what I am asking all of you to do is to ask questions and share those questions with me. We have a Student Ministry Instagram, a Discord server, an email address, and now we have this blog (with comment sections). Use any of these to submit your questions so that we can pursue the answers together.
In conclusion, I think some of you are Christians, but you don't really know WHY you're a Christian. Or, you believe in God, but you don't know WHY you believe in God. Some of you have heard the message about Jesus and the forgiveness of sins, but you don't yet know WHY you need Jesus. Let's look at these questions together this year and figure out WHY we believe what we believe. The WHY is just as important (if not more so) as the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, or WHEN.
God bless yall!
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