To Save a Life

Over the past seven weeks our youth group has been working through a revolutionary series inspired by the movie To Save a Life. It's a powerful indie movie about the real-life challenges of teens and their choices.

The main character, Jake, is the most popular guy in school. He seems to have it all: it's senior year, he's the captain of the basketball team, dating the prettiest girl on the cheerleading squad, and earned a scholarship to play ball at the college of his dreams. But his world suddenly comes crashing down when his childhood friend opens fire in the school hallway before taking his own life. Suddenly, Jake starts asking those tough questions about what life is all about and what he can do to make a difference.

The teens at his high school deal with a wide range of issues that are much more common than we would like to think, from drinking and drug use to teen pregnancy, divorce, depression, cutting, and suicide. The filmmakers did a great job of following Jake's path to salvation. It's not pretty - and his problems don't miraculously go away when he accepts Christ as his savior and gets baptized. What he goes through is very real. And He has some tough questions for the so-called Christians at his school who act one way during the week and another on Sunday morning: "What's the point of all this if it's not going to let it change you?"

At some point, every student has to decide what their life is going to be about. Unfortunately, statistics show that if they don't find Christ by the time they graduate from high school, they never will. So this series is designed to meet the students where they're at - in the middle of the drama and pain that too often defines the high school experience - and show them that they are not alone, God loves them for who they are and has an incredible plan for their lives. It also equips them to go out and make a difference today. As we constantly reminded them - we are never more like Christ than when we are reaching out to the hurting and lonely. We have the honor and the responsibility to be His hands and feet in our community. It might just save a life.

Movie trailer:

I was really excited kicking off the school year with this series. It was pretty heavy - there were many tears shed in that room on Monday nights. But ultimately it was SO rewarding. By encouraging the students to open up and be vulnerable with one another, and supporting one another in love, we took several steps toward that goal of becoming a safe, loving and contagious community of believers like that of the early church. We also saw our numbers swell from averaging 23 students per night to over 30! (I'd say our pool of "regulars" is now more like 40 but sports and homework tend to prevent some of them from coming every week). These students are excited about inviting their friends to church and are starting to put their faith into action on a daily basis, which is SO cool. I am so proud of them.

Now that we have established the fact that the teenage years are hard and that Christ is the answer, we're going to start a new series that I am writing myself to help them own their faith and ensure that it's rock solid so they're ready for anything. It'll be a good course in the basics of Christianity for our new students - and it will challenge those people who have grown up in the church and are still standing under the umbrella of their parent's religion to think about what they truly believe and why. It should be equally powerful but in a different way. Can't wait!