Josh Turner

It has been so cool this past few weeks at Fuse seeing students really own the ministry.  Last night Amber Bruce spoke and from what I heard killed it.  She has so much passion not only for God but also for seeing her generation change the world.

This year at FUSE is going to be about students owning the ministry…Worship, Praying, Preaching, Leading, Devo Groups, Media and anything else we can think of…..I am so honored to be a part of what God is doing in the lives of these students…..I can not wait to see what else happens this year.

Proud of you Amber

One of the things that is so hard for me in student ministry is trying to figure out where God is leading the ministry and what He wants for the students.

Two weeks ago during one of our worship services we gave students the opportunity to write anonymous prayer requests, just so we could pray over them.  I have to be honest the things that I read blew me away, I was not prepared to see some of the things these kids wrote.  Everything from pill addictions, to having sex at 12 years old, to suicidal thought and issues with cutting.  I would love to say that I knew it had nothing to do with me, but as their Pastor it made me feel like some how I was missing the mark.  I mean if they truly knew what Jesus did for them and how much God loved them then it would lead them to a life where they didn’t want to do those things right?  So, for the past few weeks I have been reevaluating the way that we do things at FUSE…I mean we have a great service, a ton of kids, amazing worship, students are involved in all areas, and we have an amazing environment.  However, what I came to is that all though that stuff is important it is secondary to a place where students don’t only hear the word of God preached, but also have an opportunity to be in community and understand what they heard.

Matthew 13:19 says, “When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.” When I read that this morning it was like God shook me and said you need to give the students a place to ask questions so that they will understand what it is that they have just heard.  I think sometimes as students pastors we can forget that no matter how well we break something down, students can still miss it (I mean remember when you were young)  So, what we are going to start doing at FUSE is breaking out every week into small groups where the students not only have the opportunity to ask questions, but also they get to be in community with each other.

I pray that this help them to guard themselves and their hearts.