welcome to the story.

My fellow youth leader,
Funny you would post this comment as I struggled with my lesson all weekend. We use the most incredible resource material but this week's lesson left me empty and disappointed. The passage: John 21...the "simple truth": that God wants us to have fun friendships and celebrate life together. I've been in seminary studying this very book and this ain't what John 21 is about! (Jesus is preparing His disciples to go out into the world with His WORD...and a few verses later tells Peter he will die doing this!) God's goal for us is not that we are happy and celebrate life together (not that there's anything wrong with that). He is about us representing HIM to a lost world. Sure, Jesus dined and had many friends but this passage is NOT the one I would have used to make that point. So I tried to fill in the gap with my girls and lead them to the bigger truth here: that the best friendships come through Christ, that TRUE LIFE is ONLY through HIM, that HIS WORD is LIFE and LIFE means representing God to this world. Sadly, most of these girls would rather talk about themselves but I tried. I plan to repeat this message in my monthly newsletter to them...but I was bummed that the greater truth was lost in what I consider to be a major misapplication of the text of John 21! I do not want to see the message of LIFE watered down into feel good bite sized "truths" for these kids. All that to say, I totally agree that teaching should be LIFE CHANGING! Howard Hendricks has a great book on this too...Teaching to Change Lives...that underscores what you said - Blessings, Deanna Grice