Teen Trends
The World Cup has been going on for a couple of weeks now. While soccer is on the rise here in America, not many teenagers are tuning in to watch this global event according to Digital Turbine. Millennials are the demographic most tuned in at 40%. If you are interested though, the U.S. beat Iran last night, which meant that they qualified for the knockout rounds. They've certainly made our country proud. Their next game is against the Netherlands on Saturday, and it's win or go home.
Song of the Week
This past week, Bethany Barrie released a new EP titled This Part of Me. Although she has only started writing music in the past couple of years, her lyricism is rather impressive for her young age. Some of the songs on this EP include Safe Place and The Silence. All of the songs on this EP are soothing and perfect for those that need restful music or music to work to. Here is her YouTube channel if you want to check out more of her songs. Go check her out and show some support for a young, burgeoning Christian artist.
Check out our running playlist of this season's songs on Spotify here.
Sermon Illustration
Sticking with the idea of silence, one person in the Bible who experienced what seemed like silence was Job. Amidst all of his great suffering - losing his 10 children, several thousand animals, and many servants - He cried out to God. It isn't until the end of the book that God finally responds by telling Job is His great power and might. Even in this powerful conversation in which Job is humbled and in awe of God's greatness, God still doesn't answer Job's questions. He simply reminds Job that He's in control of everything, which means He's watching over Job.
Job 42:1-3 - "Then Job replied to the Lord: I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know."
Encouraging Thought
We all have questions that we'd love to ask God - "Why did you do this?" or "What were you thinking, God?" While God loves when we come to Him with our questions, He almost never answers in the way that we expect. In the case of Job, he never gets a satisfactory answer to his question, but what God does give him is so much better. Job has this incredible conversation with God about how incredible God truly is, and this alone can be a comfort to us when our prayers seem to be bouncing off of the ceiling.
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The vision of the Student Leader Weekly is to empower high schoolers (alongside adult leadership) with practical ministry ideas.