Stand up and pat your self down. Fill like something’s missing? Do you fill like your life is just not what it should be? Try this; Are these five things fully active in your life? Your relationship with Christ, your purpose, vision, passion, your plan. These five words have been a governor for my life.

1. Relationship
Here is the key! No relationship with God no nothing. No relationship with God you will never know your purpose, wont have a real vision, real passion, and your plan will be faulty. God holds all these answers and is the only one with them. The more you get to know him the more your get to know yourself.

Now what do I mean about a relationship. I’m not talking about crying, jumping, emotional time at an alter. A real relationship is well rounded. I don’t know how many times in my youth one of my friends would be having a “relationship” (boyfriend, girlfriend thing) that would be purely psychical. I would watch these relationships bomb, and bomb big, one after another.

Another word that I ‘m passionate about is “balance”. A relationship with only a honeymoon atmosphere wont work, and at the same time no passion is just as bad. You have to have balance. This is one area I need to work on. I tend to not do the passion thing. That might be because I’ve grown up seeing people abuse or making up a jump and shout. You’re always building your life, so you should check for plume. Balance often.

Relationship = time with.
Just as Jesus sat around the fire with the disciples shooting the breeze. We must sit down with him and do the same. With the advent of the cell phone the giggly girl can be doing her thing on the phone anywhere, anytime. In the last week we had friends over they have a 13 year old daughter, she has a phone. The three days she was here the phone was permanently attached to her face. I couldn’t figure out what she and her friends could have to say to each other for that long. At one point she set down the phone I jumped over at her before she picked it back up and asked her about her friends. She could tell me anything about them, even the clothes they were wearing that day and she hadn’t seen them in three days, But she knew because they were in constant communication. Humm. Constant Communication, that’s a relationship.

I could go on and on about those giggly girls, how the more they Constantly Communicate the more they talk like each other, they finish each others sentences. Simply put the more time they spend time with each other they act like each other.

Set down around a fire and send time with God, have a relationship not just an acquaintance.

2. Purpose
Know God Know Yourself! There is nothing like knowing your purpose. Knowing why and what your hands were made to do. Ya! That’s right you were made to do something. Now finding out what that is is up to you.
Finding your purpose isn’t hard, but it is. Wow, figure that one out.

Now you can go through life not really knowing your purpose, just making up things as you go, and still be “successful”. I grew up in the “80’s”. I watched all the rock stars and stars do there thing, get rich, party, have fame. Man, They were successful. Now years down the line VH1 put out “beyond the music”, a biography of these stars lives. If you pay attentions you’ll notice how much of wreck each of there lives have been. Our definition of success is WRONG. All these stars found out would they were good at but never found there purpose. The way we can know our purpose is to have a relationship with our creator, God. Go back up to the relationship thing. The more time you spend with Him the time you have to ask, “Hey, why did you make me?”, “why, did you make me like this?”. The more time you spend with him the more time you have to listen to him tell you what he wants for you.

It seems simple get to know God and you get to know you. The problem with this is, us. We have this notion that we can do it with out him. How stupid are you. When was the last time you saw a baby get out of the crib and make there own steak, It just don’t work that way.

God knows why he made you. Like the old potter and the pot story. The creator all ways knows more of why, and what he made something for. God made you for a purpose. Go to Him and ask what it is. He is the only one who knows.

to be continued...

Reach, Disciple, Release… is how I would describe my style of student ministry in the fewest words. Jesus reached out to Peter and said, “Come with me, and I will make you fishers of men”. 

Showing teens to Jesus, teaching them how to have a relationship with him and then pointing them towards God’s purpose for their life is the greatest job in the world.

The tools I tend to use are Relationship, Teaching, and Training. Relationships being the most important of them all. At the end of John Jesus calls some of the disciples to shore. When they get there he sits around a fire with them (in a relational moment) eating fish and shooting the bull (teaching). Some time before that he sent the disciples out to the crowd to feed the crowd. As we know they started out with just the five fishes and loaves (training). Jesus took a bunch of guys made friends with them, Taught them of his father and of his home, and then made them the leaders that would reach, disciple and release the rest of the world.

Relationship is the structure Christ used with the disciples and is the key. He hung out with them, worked with them, ministered with them, and my favorite: ate with them. By doing so he changed their lives and therefore they changed others lives. Jesus played “Big Red Ball” with them. Or maybe it was

“Big Red Rock” (no that would be stoning). But Jesus did not do this just to “Win” them over. He really, truly, cared and they were his friends. He became their friend even though he was God.