Teen Trends
YPulse has conducted a survey asking Millennials and Gen Z individuals their favorite hobbies. Sports topped the charts for both generations. Unsurprisingly, gaming is very high on Gen Z's list, but it's still fairly high for Millennials though. TV is on the decline though as Gen Z didn't rate it as high as previous generations. One rather odd "hobby" on Gen Z's list coming in at 14 is cleaning. Here is the article if you want to check it out the article for yourself.
Song of the Week
Kristian Stanfill, one of the worship leaders for Passion Worship, has released an album titled Make it Out Alive. While the entire album is worth a listen, I specifically fell in love with the song that shares the same title as the album. The album follows Kristian's journey throughout the past couple of years wrestling with God, and how he slowly began to embrace the wrestling as a part of God's grand design. You can check out Kristian's version of the story here.
Check out our running playlist of this season's songs on Spotify here.
Sermon Illustration
Pruning is a common illustration that is used to describe the hard seasons of our lives. God cuts away the dead parts of our lives so that we can grow. For us, this means that God cuts away anything that's not of Him through a refining process, and it brings us closer to Him. This is the part that we're probably all familiar with. Another neat part of the pruning process is what happens with the stuff that is cut off though. The dead leaves that fall to the ground oftentimes can act as a fertilizer and help the plant to absorb nutrients from the soil. Essentially, the pain and suffering that God has trimmed away are the very things that can help us grow.
Encouraging Thought
Everyone goes through pruning seasons at some point in their lives. Admittedly, they can be very painful. In these kinds of seasons, it's okay to have doubts or struggles - to ask God questions. Even Job accused God of anger and experienced an emotional rollercoaster. Ultimately, God showed Job how intricate the world is and how God effortlessly rules over it. If God runs the entire world, He's surely in control of one person's life - one person with a finite mind that can't comprehend God's vastness and complexity.
Job 42:1-2 - "The Job replied to the Lord: I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted."
The Director of Quest, Dr. Tapper also recently gave a short devotional recently on Biblolatry and Bibemic. See for yourself what those crazy words mean on our Instagram page here.
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The vision of the Student Leader Weekly is to empower high schoolers (alongside adult leadership) with practical ministry ideas.