accountable to our actions

Last Friday (11/9/07) we had a very pleasant surprise. One of the youth brought in their Nintendo Wii and it's just too much fun not to play! That took up quite a bit of our time. In between playing sessions though, we followed up on actions that we discussed the previous Friday and talked a bit about accountability.

You can refer to our earlier blog called "our actions" to read about what we did the previous week, but in short, they obviously mean much. We referred to a short passage in James and also took the time to think of specific actions to serve people in our home, church, school, and neighborhood.

We revisited those actions. I challenged the youth to pick one action in one of those categories that they are willing to do this week. And I encouraged them being accountable to each other. I will be calling them during the week, but my hope is that they will encourage each other when they see each other. And I said they can challenge and encourage me to make sure I follow through.

Accountability is important in the community of believers. We are not meant to go through this journey alone. In fact, we will be talking about community this upcoming Sunday (11/18). It says in Proverbs, amongst other places, how much more a group of believers can do together as opposed to someone alone.

So let's grow together. Let's encourage one another. Let's build this community at church and youth group.

our actions

This past Friday (11/2/07) we had a discussion about the importance of our actions using a clip from the film, Batman Begins. The clip features a conversation between Bruce Wayne (played by Christian Bale) and his childhood friend, Rachel Dawes (played by Katie Holmes). Afterwards, we had a short discussion and an activity on thinking of actions that would help those around us. You can find the full study at The Source for Youth Ministry website here.

Bruce is leaving a hotel with a couple of lady friends and being arrogant. They were being disrespectful and Bruce's response to one of the employees was writing a check to buy the hotel. While exiting, he runs into Rachel, clearly embarrassed by how he looks (his suit is wet from jumping into the hotel decoration pool with his friends). The main line at the end of this movie clip is when Rachel says to Bruce, "It's not who you are underneath... it's what you do that defines you."

Some questions based on this scene:
1) Have you ever seen anyone doing something they shouldn't have, and they get busted?
2) Have you gotten busted for doing something you shouldn't have?
3) Why do we try and explain when we get busted?
4) How powerful are our actions?

The main idea with question 3 is that we try and explain that this is not how we are usually like. We are better then that. Everyone agreed that our actions are powerful and can speak louder than words. We then looked at James 2:14-17, which speaks about this topic. Another important point is that as Christians, we are defined by the love of God, not our actions. Our actions are still huge, but they are an outpouring of the identity we receive from God, as it says in the bible passage from James.

We closed by doing an activity in silence. What are ways we can make the people around us better? In timed intervals, each youth sat and wrote down ways that they can use actions to build the community and improve the lives of people at their home, school, church, and neighborhood.

Actions speak louder than words. It is my prayer that we all think and act on ways to improve the community around us and bless others.