Daily Scripture:
1 Corinthians 12:14 For indeed the body is not one part but many. 15 If the foot says, “I’m not a hand, so I’m not part of the body,” that doesn’t make it stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear says, “I’m not an eye, so I’m not part of the body,” that doesn’t make it stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? If it were all hearing, how could it smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged each of the parts in the body exactly as he wanted them. (Complete Jewish Bible).
Reflection Questions:
In Jumanji, high-school football star “Fridge” found himself transformed into the diminutive zoologist “Moose Finbar.” As the players were discovering their strengths, Moose grumbled, “I hate this game. Everybody else got the good stuff!” The apostle Paul, a bit playfully, showed in today’s reading that the church needs and welcomes all types of “players,” all types of members for the “body of Christ.” Nobody got “all the good stuff.” In truth, all the strengths are “good stuff.”
The group I led on rezlife West’s high school mission trip to Shreveport, Louisiana, spent the majority of our week serving a children’s day camp at a local elementary school. The first day we were there, before the children arrived, one of the boys in my group told us he was nervous: “I don’t like kids. I’m not good with kids.”
We spent the mornings leading activities that we had planned for the children, and in the afternoons our group split up and sent two students to help out with different lessons in each classroom (such as math, science, etc). Our first morning there, this student sat against a wall the entire time and didn’t really want to interact with the children we were leading. I think he was feeling uncomfortable in the situation, and I wondered why he hadn’t asked our youth pastor to place him in one of the other groups that were going to different locations when he was given the chance.
In the afternoon when the group split up to help some of the teachers throughout the school, this student chose to stay with one of his friends and help out with the PE class. He may not have felt comfortable around children, but he did enjoy being active and playing games like dodgeball and Capture the Flag.
By the end of the week, when we were saying goodbye to the children for the last time, he told us that he had a lot more fun than he had expected. He even admitted that he realized he doesn’t dislike children as much as he had thought.
He played a vital part in our group. Without his love for sports, we may not have had anyone to have fun with the children during their PE classes. It wasn’t only about who was “good with kids.” Each member of our group was able to use something he or she enjoyed and reflect that in their interaction with the children. We saw that no one gift was more meaningful than another in doing God’s work and reflecting His love at that day camp.
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In Jumanji, high-school football star “Fridge” found himself transformed into the diminutive zoologist “Moose Finbar.” As the players were discovering their strengths, Moose grumbled, “I hate this game. Everybody else got the good stuff!” The apostle Paul, a bit playfully, showed in today’s reading that the church needs and welcomes all types of “players,” all types of members for the “body of Christ.” Nobody got “all the good stuff.” In truth, all the strengths are “good stuff.”
- Paul’s image of jealous, moping body parts (verses 15-18) becomes funny if you try to picture such a thing really happening with your hands or feet. But he was serious, because it WAS really happening among the Christians in Corinth. It’s been happening ever since. What has helped you value and use your own gifts, rather than trying to be a poor imitation of someone else with different gifts?
- Paul also addressed our human tendency to think, “Everyone else should be like me.” So he asked, “If the whole body were an eye, what would happen to the hearing? And if the whole body were an ear, what would happen to the sense of smell?” (verse 17) How hard or easy do you find it to value people whose gifts fall in different areas from yours?
Sydney Hoover
Sydney is the Student Ministries summer intern at Resurrection West and a sophomore at the University of Kansas studying journalism and Spanish. At KU, she is involved in the UDK Newspaper as the Student Senate Reporter, Journalism Student Leadership Board, StuMo Campus Ministry, and is a member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority. Sydney and her family have been members at Resurrection West for eight years, and she has been involved in rezlife since sixth grade.The group I led on rezlife West’s high school mission trip to Shreveport, Louisiana, spent the majority of our week serving a children’s day camp at a local elementary school. The first day we were there, before the children arrived, one of the boys in my group told us he was nervous: “I don’t like kids. I’m not good with kids.”
We spent the mornings leading activities that we had planned for the children, and in the afternoons our group split up and sent two students to help out with different lessons in each classroom (such as math, science, etc). Our first morning there, this student sat against a wall the entire time and didn’t really want to interact with the children we were leading. I think he was feeling uncomfortable in the situation, and I wondered why he hadn’t asked our youth pastor to place him in one of the other groups that were going to different locations when he was given the chance.
In the afternoon when the group split up to help some of the teachers throughout the school, this student chose to stay with one of his friends and help out with the PE class. He may not have felt comfortable around children, but he did enjoy being active and playing games like dodgeball and Capture the Flag.
By the end of the week, when we were saying goodbye to the children for the last time, he told us that he had a lot more fun than he had expected. He even admitted that he realized he doesn’t dislike children as much as he had thought.
He played a vital part in our group. Without his love for sports, we may not have had anyone to have fun with the children during their PE classes. It wasn’t only about who was “good with kids.” Each member of our group was able to use something he or she enjoyed and reflect that in their interaction with the children. We saw that no one gift was more meaningful than another in doing God’s work and reflecting His love at that day camp.
Like this post? Share it!
You might also like:
- Dr. Bravestone: “We can help each other.”
- Prayer Tip: Game ON!
- “Be kind, compassionate, and forgiving”—like God
- Jesus' vision of true human greatness
- “The goal I pursue”
- Or download this week's printable GPS.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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