Make Your Mark...

This weekend was great! Well, from a middle school perspective. Friday night and Saturday morning we had "Make Your Mark" - a leadership development weekend for middle school students. Friday night we did something I've never done before. (One of the cool things of working with middle schoolers is having these moments of watching them experience things for the first time!). Anyway - we had 2 guys from the area there to teach them how to do...GRAFFITI! Yep, spray paint & 17 middle schoolers. You have the mental picture! How do you feel about that idea right this moment? Picture it --- 17 middle school students each with at least one can of spray paint! WOW! Now...imagine training up 17 middle schoolers to be leaders. Which is scarier? Spray paint in their hands...or the future in their hands? It is important to train middle schoolers, and others, in leadership...and graffiti. Done in the right way, with the right focus and motivation, it's amazing! Watch out! Done in the wrong way, with the wrong focus and motivation. It's detrimental! Watch out!

So we didn't take lightly the task of training up these students for 6 hours this weekend. Matthew 20 was our focus text vs. 26-28: "But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Serve. Serve others. Think about others. Yesterday morning at The Link, the middle school time @ church on the weekends, I was running Media Shout in the back and just kinda looking the room over...when I see one of the students who attended Make Your Mark get up from her seat next to two friends. I wondered where she was going, and smiled so big as I watched her go and sit on the other side of the room next to a girl who was sitting by herself. She introduced herself, and although it was clear to me she was a little nervous - I was SO excited to see a student MAKE HER MARK and reach out to another middle schooler... We talked about (in a break-out session), how sometimes we feel like we have to make this HUGE change to make a difference, to be a leader...but in the little things we do, they are HUGE to the person we are doing them for...and for this girl, it was huge that someone came to sit with her. She stood up a little taller, and you could just see her smile. She was serving someone else, and willing to give up sitting with her friends and being comfortable. She IS a leader! Way to go girl - I'll give ya' a can of spray paint any day...