Christmas All-Year Round: Jesus, Love, and Your Youth Ministry
Everybody loves Christmas. It seems one reason is because everybody loves at Christmas! It’s a uniquely love-filled time, isn’t it?
For Christ-followers, we dwell on the love the Father demonstrated through the incarnation, the love of Christ in taking our humanity upon Himself, the love of Mary and Joseph, both for each other and for the will of God, and so on. But we also see traces of this love in secular culture at Christmas. The emphasis put on family and charity is seemingly (and maybe sadly) unique in our culture this time of year.
Christmas is indeed a time of love. And because of this, it’s a good opportunity to think about how we speak about, and teach the concept of Christian love to teenagers.
When we think of love as it is portrayed in Scripture, so often we go to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 13 is usually read at weddings and the typical response is “Oh, how sweet and lovely are the apostle Paul’s words.” But Paul’s words on love weren’t written just to be framed and hung on our walls in our homes. They were written to challenge a culture of self-absorption. This describes the 1st century Corinthian church. And it describes 21st Century American culture, as well.
So what do we make out of 1 Corinthians 13?
Paul says love has characteristics. These characteristics are patience, kindness, giving support, and celebrating truth. When Paul made this list, he was not thinking: “What would make God’s love sound really good right now. Let me see . . . ” He is not thinking of giving the Corinthians 7 principles of love, or 5 keys to unlock love. He was not hoping to give the Corinthian church a cool set of verses that would be read at weddings for the next 1000 years. Paul is doing none of this.
What Paul is doing is thinking of a person: Jesus Christ.
Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are indeed at each other’s throats. But his expounding on love serves to ask this question: How can you be if you remember the cross?
On the cross, Jesus was patient. On the cross, Jesus didn’t keep a record of wrongs. Jesus died not in arrogance but in humility. When Paul writes, “Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs,” he is thinking of the life and work of Jesus.
You can never be a loving person simply by trying. You will never be able to demonstrate Christ’s love to your students (or spouse, or children etc.) if you see love as guidelines to fulfill or a standard to achieve. Love is too powerful to be limited to pragmatism.
- Want proof? In another letter, Paul says love has to overwhelm and overcome you.
- “The love of Christ compels me,” Paul later told the Corinthians.
- “I am taking hold of that which has already taken hold of me” he told the Philippians.
If we read 1 Corinthians 13 first and foremost as principles for us to live by, we’ll never love. But if we see this not as a love you have to do first, but a love that was first done for you and to you, this will change everything in you.
We must begin to teach our students to understand and apply this truth.
How can we model this for our students? How can we teach them that the love of Christ is something that is in them, but has to be lived out?
What if your youth group was known in your community for its love, not just a few weeks in December, but all the time?
As we are surrounded by the love and peace of Christmas, let’s use it as a starting point to help infuse our ministries with the love of Christ . . . for each other, for our communities, and for the world.
Downloaded the ym360 FREE Christmas Lesson Yet? (Why Not?)
The FREE Lesson (with Leader’s Guide and Student Guide) teaches students that the Christmas spirit of giving goes way beyond gifts!
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ym360 has FREE Christmas Devotions for your Students!
We’ve created 5 days of devotions based on the Christmas Story.
Download them today to help your students stay focused on Christ this Christmas. CLICK HERE to download.
Brian Fulton is the College Pastor at The Church at Shelby Crossings in Calera, AL. He also maintains an itinerant speaking ministry to youth and college students and blogs at www.brianfulton.org
