Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Where is your God?

One thing I particularly love and admire about Brazilian culture is how little emphasis is placed on age. Our largest demographic at church is young people, and that group consists of members from 13-30. We gather for weekly Bible studies, hang out and eat pizza on Fridays, and no one blinks at the fact that a 17 year old is really great friends with a 28 year old. I don't even really know how old my roommate is. I think she's 21, and I'm 26, but I always have to ask her. It just doesn't matter.

Because of the wide age range, we are always looking for ways to keep our weekly gatherings on Saturday nights interesting and fun. This semester our group of 25 young people divided into three subgroups. Each group would be responsible for one gathering a month, from September to December. The first group would be responsible for Bible study, the second group would be responsible for "communion," or a gathering focused on creating community among the group, and the third group would be responsible for outreach. It was an exciting way to get our young people involved in their own events!

My group was responsible for outreach. Because of my ties to all of our LST readers, it was a natural placement for me in that we already have a very large pool to which we could direct our efforts. :) Our first meeting was a beach luau with games and a moonlight devotional, our second event was a movie night where we showed the movie Fireproof, and our third event was this past Saturday.

Our group wanted to have an evangelistic event at our church to which we could invite our friends, coworkers, and families. Although I led the group, I can honestly say that this was their baby from start to finish. They had the idea, they planned the activities, they planned the skit, they planned the food, they planned the praise time, and they did the inviting. After all the time, energy, and prayer that was poured into this event, when all was said and done, it turned out to be the most successful event of its kind that our church has ever seen!

The theme was "Where is Your God?" and we were blessed to get to hear Thalita share her testimony. Before the event was even over, some of our guests had already begun sharing with us how God has used the skit and Thalita's testimony to impact their lives! We had over 80 people present, with over 30 of them being visitors, many of which had previously never participated in any of our activities. I was so proud of our little group of five, and so proud of our church for getting behind us, helping us, serving the hot dogs, and inviting friends and neighbors.

I want to share with you the skit that our young people performed. It is based on the song Everything by Lifehouse. Apparently the skit has become pretty well-known since its original performance was put on YouTube several years ago. This is the second time our young people have performed this skit, and once you watch the video you will understand why we wanted to use it again! It gives powerful testimony to the influence Satan has over us, and, ultimately, Jesus's sacrifice that overcomes that influence.


(For those of you familiar with our church family, Caio is playing Jesus, Catherine is his creation, Franciney represents lust, Jonathan represents greed, Fernanda represents addiction, Rejane represents vanity, and Talis plays the part of death.)