Yesterday, I started taking my Religion students (7th and
11th grade) through the book The Purpose Driven Life.
If you are familiar you know that the chapters are really short, and meant to
be read as daily devotionals. We usually spend ten to fifteen minutes reading
the chapters together and then discuss things that come to mind with the remainder
of class.
Today I had planned to read and discuss Chapter 2, which is titled, “You are not an accident.” I first had the students turn to and read from Psalm 139. A few students expressed cool thoughts that had risen as the passage was read. I then began reading from the Purpose Driven Life book. I read the first page or so and stopped to spend some time on a few thoughts: you are not an accident, you are unique, and God knows you completely. I then turned to a student and asked her to tell me things that she liked about herself. She hesitated. A student quickly responded, “Why dont you let us tell her the things we like about her?” God inspired. I agreed. Then we spent the rest of 6th period (7th grade) encouraging each other with words.
Today I had planned to read and discuss Chapter 2, which is titled, “You are not an accident.” I first had the students turn to and read from Psalm 139. A few students expressed cool thoughts that had risen as the passage was read. I then began reading from the Purpose Driven Life book. I read the first page or so and stopped to spend some time on a few thoughts: you are not an accident, you are unique, and God knows you completely. I then turned to a student and asked her to tell me things that she liked about herself. She hesitated. A student quickly responded, “Why dont you let us tell her the things we like about her?” God inspired. I agreed. Then we spent the rest of 6th period (7th grade) encouraging each other with words.
After class, I headed up to
the high school for the last class of the day, my 11th
grade Religion class. My 7th grade Religion class
is like a pastor’s first Sunday service sermon. He tests things out and then
may tweek a few things for the next service. I do the same with 11th
grade. “Well, this went really well for 7th
grade. Lets do that with the 11th
graders.” So after seeing how much fun this activity was with the junior high
students I eagerly awaited the same exercise with the juniors. I followed the
same routine as the younger class by having the juniors read from Psalm 139.
Then we took turns saying unique, positive, necessary things about each
student.
We took turns
highlighting what we liked about each person, me contributing my own thoughts
as I have gotten to know these students well. I found this exercise to be
incredibly rewarding for me to be able to speak Truth into each person’s life.
I am somewhat guarded when it comes to high school students mainly in part
because I sense that I have to be on the defensive with them, always watching
for and expecting things to be pulled over my head, like they are all secretly
planning an attack to revolt against the teacher. But that has not hindered the
potential that I see in my students. So being able to bless them in front of
the class, with their peers, was freeing and a blessing to me.
I could tell from the
nonverbal queues displayed by each student that when it was their turn to be
blessed with words they got a bit squeamish. Its exactly how I get too. I don’t
like having the attention on me. And sometimes I have a hard time believing
what is being said. And because I have discerned personalities and thoughts for
each student, I knew that one particular student would struggle to actually
believe what was being said about her.
After each person’s turn,
and with a few minutes left in class, I had each student write down what was
said about them. I told them the enemy would speak lies over them and probably
already had as the activity was taking place. Following that thought, I said,
“If multiple people (your friends) said all these great things about you, its
because they see that in you. They would not just make stuff up, especially if
more than one said roughly the same thing about you. The enemy doesn’t want us
to believe these things and will tell you otherwise, but you MUST know that God
has designed you with certain qualities, attributes, and talents that are
unique to you and He wants to receive Glory through those.”
With class finished, I went
to the office to grab a few things and leave and recognized the certain student
mentioned above was sitting in the office talking to the principal. I asked her
if it was hard to receive those words from her classmates and friends and she
confirmed with a nod. I then assured her that she possessed those qualities and
characteristics mentioned and that she needed to believe thats exactly what God
thinks about her and the way he designed her too. She told me that those words
made her cry, which I had seen in class but thought it was for another reason.
Her struggle to believe them as truth, followed by crying, leads me to believe
that God had penetrated her heart and her tears were the display of that.
And AGAIN (I say again
because I feel so undeserving when God does this and it has happened several
times in my first year of teaching) God showed up today, through a student’s
suggestion, and directed the class to the message that He wanted covered. And I
have to mention, this happens all the time here. I will be sitting in the
lounge with a rough outline of my plans and God will pop an idea (activity,
lesson, etc) in my head and I know thats what I should do. It usually happens
last minute, and as a friend said, probably so that I cannot claim it as my own
idea. The Spirit is leading!
jmh
