Students
"Which commandment is the first of all?"
Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'
The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
There is no commandment greater than these."
~Mark 12:28-31
The teenage and college years are an exciting time of growth physically, emotionally, socially, mentally, and spiritually. Students live in a high tech, fast paced, demanding society that can be a lot of fun, but also very stressful and confusing. The student ministry at Yates seeks to meet students where they are to help them grow in their relationship with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit while at the same time learning to care for and love themselves and others. We therefore focus our ministry around the two greatest commandments given by our Lord:
Loving God
Learning to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength does not come naturally to any of us. We find our example of how to love God from the way God loved us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible. Bible Study is therefore a central part of our student ministry. As we learn to listen to Scripture and the Holy Spirit, we begin to discover the crazy kind of love that God pours out upon God's people as shown to Israel in the Old Testament and to all the world through Jesus in the New Testament. As students learn how much God loves them, they are more able to freely love their creating, redeeming, and sustaining God.
Loving Self
Learning to love yourself the way Jesus was talking about is very different from how most students (girls and guys) think of themselves. The kind of love God wants teenagers and college students to have for themselves is not self-loathing, selfish, nor self-absorbed. It is a grace-filled understanding that we are not perfect. We all come in different shapes, sizes, and colors and that's okay. We all think differently and have different opinions and that's okay. We all struggle together along this path to Christ-likeness and that's okay too. Jesus didn't come for the perfect, but for the imperfect. God cares what we think about ourselves. God did not create crap and Jesus didn't give his life for nothing. Christ's willingness to die for you means that you are worth A LOT! This is why the student ministry at Yates discusses topics related to caring for yourself and accepting the true fact that each student is a completely loved child of God.
Loving Others
Learning to love others in its purest form naturally flows from a real understanding of God's love for us. This is why the student ministry at Yates desires to create a sense that this is a place you can belong. We want to care for one another and build up one another through encouragement and friendship. We do this by meeting often for Bible Study and specific fellowship events for students to get to know one another better. Loving others also encompasses mission activities and retreats. As students serve others locally in Durham, around North Carolina, or even the world, they understand even more the love of God for all people no matter how much money they have, cultural difference, language, or nationality. We serve a big God who can use teenagers and college students in amazing ways to reach the world with God's love!
