When young people realize that God wants to use them, and open themselves up to that calling, it is a powerful thing! TEAM G stands for Telling Everyone About My God. This is a Week of Prayer initiative I started one year ago while preaching to the students at Milwaukee Seventh-day Adventist School, and I have enjoyed bringing it to three other schools since.
At the beginning of the week, we establish that we're going to put together a faith team--kind of like a Fantasy Football team, but with Bible characters--that will inspire us as we strive to be better about telling everyone the Good News. Jesus has to be the captain of the team, and we start with Him on Monday. Then the students choose the Bible characters who I will preach about for the rest of the week (which makes the messages custom to them, and also is fun for the kids because it puts me on my toes to preach about whoever they want to know about). As I preach about each character, we discuss their story and how they can inspire us to be faithful witnesses for Jesus. Finally, we land on the idea that the story of faith doesn't end with these Bible characters: God is calling them today to be faithful. Throughout the week, I also have various giveaways, and I talk about all the various ministry teams that I get to work with, as the Youth Director. This helps the students to gain an awareness of the options are for getting involved in Youth Department programs, like Summer Camp, Club Ministries, Public Campus Ministries, and other ministries around the conference.
All this directly fulfills the mission of the Wisconsin Conference Youth Department, which aims to empower young people with the knowledge that God has set them apart for a special purpose. If you would like me to come to your school, to bring this kind of message to your students, let me know! It's been a blessing as I've tried this model with various schools, and even though there is a formula to it: it ends up different each time, according to the unique needs of each group of students.
This week I have been presenting TEAM G to the students at Green Bay Adventist Junior Academy, and I look forward to culminating the messages at the Green Bay Church on Sabbath. Keep the students and church in prayer, as we continue to study the faith team they have put together, which is as follows:
Monday: Jesus (captain)
Tuesday: Daniel
Wednesday: Paul
Thursday: Elijah
Friday: Job
Sabbath: Esther