Teen Trends
The Atlantic posted an article about how fictional TV and reality are becoming increasingly intertwined. A couple of examples of this are how some outgoing, lovable people are often said to give off "main character energy" or how boring, mundane days are now labeled "filler days". The article claimed that people tend to imagine themselves as the star in their own movies, and everyone else is supporting cast. This is further exasperated by social media, which literally gives everyone the ability to film their own lives. It's important to remember that reality is different than the idealized lives presented in movies and that everything does not revolve around us. If anything, God is the author of our life or the director of our movie to continue the analogy. God is the one who defines our reality - not movies, other people, or even ourselves.
Song of the Week
Matt Redman is most famous for his song 10,000 Reasons, but he released a single this week called Lamb of God (feat. David Funk). It acknowledges the significance of Christ's sacrifice and the glory and grace of His death. It was about more than just His brutal death though. His death repaired our ability to have a relationship with the loving Father again. Therefore, he deserves our worship and praise - for freeing us from our sins and reuniting us with the Godhead. Most Christians already cognitively know all of these things, but not all of them truly know it and let it influence their daily lives.
Check out our running playlist of this season's songs on Spotify here.
Sermon Illustration
How many hours do you spend watching TV, playing video games, scrolling through social media, or any other kind of electronic entertainment? It takes up a large portion of our lives. How many hours (or even minutes) do you spend with God? Admittedly, we get asked these questions all the time in an attempt to challenge us to spend more time with God, but have you ever stopped to think about the why? God already sacrificed SOOO much to be with us. Why don't we sacrifice a few more minutes of our day to spend more time with Him? It's nowhere near the level of God's sacrifice, but He greatly appreciates it, nonetheless.
Encouraging Thought
I hope you've seen the crucifixion seen from The Passion of the Christ by now. It's definitely hard to watch, but it really puts into perspective all that Jesus had to go through on our behalf. He endured not only the physical pain, but the emotional pain of His Father turning away because of the sins that he bore. This sacrifice was for us... for you... Take some time today or at least some point this week to let that sink in.
1 John 3:16 - This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
*Apologies for missing last week's post. In all honesty, it was published, but we forgot to send it out to y'all. Oops! :( Thank you for your patience though.
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The vision of the Student Leader Weekly is to empower high schoolers (alongside adult leadership) with practical ministry ideas.