Roots Student Ministry Podcast

Treating people like "trash" has become the new normal. Our culture has gotten used to being mean to people. We either have been bullied, been the one bullying or watched someone be bullied. But when we start to see everyone as masterpieces created by God, we can solve the problem of bullying.

Holding onto our faith is important. But what happens when what we've believed in the past gets shaken? We may have based our foundation of our faith on Bible stories that we learned about when we were in Sunday school, or maybe on other peoples expectations of us to believe in Jesus, or even holding onto God through tragedy or trauma in our lives. But what happens when that foundation gets rattle...

From the very beginning, Jesus was there. So when we are asking questions about how the earth was created, or how/when did dinosaurs exist, we can be confident knowing that we can trust the Who behind it all. Jesus came down as the Son of God and people were eye witnesses to His death and resurrection. Because of the work that Jesus did, we can be sure that even if we don't know all the answers, w...

Wondering is part of who we are. When it comes to faith and science, we have probably wondered if they can even go together. Many may even argue that faith and science are complete opposites of each other. But as we start to explore more about science, we should be able to learn more about our faith. As we begin to explore science, we can see the God behind it all.

We are inundated with bad news every day. From the war in Europe, to what political leader did the wrong thing, to which celebrity got cancelled this last week. It's easy for us to focus on the negative things that happen. But what would happen to the world around us if we truly lived out the fruit of the Spirit? People would see the change in us and want to be around us because we will feel "safe...

You may feel that in order to live the fruits of the Spirit, you need to do it all on your own. But if we've done that before, we know that living the good life is just out of reach. But in order to find what we're truly looking for, we need to be living with God as our focus and be in step with Him. In order to live the good life, we need to stay in step with the Spirit.

In this weeks message, we talk specifically about what each fruit of the Spirit means. Instead of just understanding each word from a basic point of view, let's dig deeper into what a better view of each fruit means.

We may think that we need to make the good life happen on our own. We need the nicest car, newest iPhone, the spot on the team, the A on the test in order to have the good life. But ultimately the good life comes from the inside. It comes from God working inside of you so you can become who He created you to be. When you start to practice that in your life, then you'll start to find the good life.

We all want to live the good life, but most of our lives we just live on auto-pilot. We do our day to day activities with minimal change. We may think the good life is fun, good food, lots of money, nice cars and living in big cities, but those will all fall short. The good life is when we can live life with the Holy Spirit inside of us. The Spirit will produce great characteristics inside of us s...

One thing that all of us have experienced is a changing of friendship. Maybe someone moved away and your friendship changed. Maybe a friend hurt you and the friendship changed. So what do we do when it's time to change the friendship? Or more specifically, how do we "unfriend" someone? If we're honest, we realize that some friendships are not meant to be forever, but just a season. So how can we l...

The people around you definitely have a big impact on your life. And the friend you have now will have a big influence on your quality of life now and where your life ends up later. That's because friends are a big deal. So we need to surround ourselves with the right influences who make our lives better. We get to choose the impact they have on our lives.

Growing up, we weren't always taught how to be good friends. We were taught to say thank you, work hard and behave, but we weren't taught how to manage friendships well. So we are left to try to figure out friendships naturally on our own, which is hard to do when friendships are always changing and expectations aren't always met. But to create good friendships, we need to be proactive instead of...

All teenagers think about their body image. In fact, even adults think about their body image all the time. We have a specific way that we view ourselves, and we have a specific way that we think that other people view us. And this can center around any number of things. Things like our height, muscle mass, hair, acne, skin tone, weight, as well as other things. But when it comes to body image, yo...

No one is meant to figure out life on their own. With so much noise going on around us, we need to figure out who to listen to. When we look for someone who is older than us who is living the life that we want ours to look like, then we should allow ourselves to listen to them. Everyone needs a mentor in their life who can speak truth into our lives so we can grow in wisdom.

When Paul wrote to the young leader, Timothy, He didn't see him as someone who would be a great leader later. Paul saw him as someone who could be a great leader while he was young. Even though you're young now, God still has a purpose for your time as a teenager. So decide what you want your teenagers years to be all about, and live it out.

When it comes to our faith, some of us feel underestimated by others. We feel like our faith is not challenged. But some of us feel like there are just too many pressures when it comes to our faith. Like we have to live up to a certain level to be a "good Christian." Today we look at the example in 1 Timothy where Paul tells Timothy to be the example and don't let anyone look down on you because o...

Most of us feel like we have to fight for ourselves to get through life on top. That may mean cutting others down so we can feel better about ourselves. But Jesus flipped that idea upside down. He cared more about how we love and serve other people. He knew that when we served others, we would experience the true freedom that Jesus wants us to have. We are free to make a difference in other people...

When we think about sin, we think about it like a sliding scale. Some sin is definitely worst than others. So then we start to naturally ask the question, "What can I get away with and still not be a 'bad person'?" But that shouldn't be the question we ask at all. What we should do is think about what our future will look like with the choices we make now. Because what we plant now is what we'll h...

As teenagers, we're always worrying about winning the approval from others. Maybe it's our parents, our teachers, our coaches, or even our friends. We care what people think about us. But scripture tells us that the only approval we need to be thinking about is God's approval. When we do things for God, it changes the priorities of everything else in our lives.

Many of us may think that when it comes to our faith, it's all about the rules. "Thou shalt not do certain things and thou shalt do other things" is what we have probably heard while growing up. But because of Jesus, we are set free from the rules. Instead of thinking of faith as things that you can and cannot do, it's more important to think of faith like a destination. What do we want our future...

We have hard things that we face all the time. When something comes up that takes a lot of work, or takes longer than we are used to, and we haven’t had the practice to be resilient, it feels impossible to take on. But knowing Jesus can help change everything. He can help us see ourselves in the right perspective and see ourselves as strong, capable and resilient.

Many times we feel like we have to do everything on our own. So we start to pull away from others, hold things back from other people, or start to think that life is "all about me". But true resilience is built with others around you, who support you to keep going. Others help us grow, help us see the good and give the support that we need.

Life gets hard. We will face trouble. And that can sometimes make us question everything about God. But God, the Father sent Jesus down to this earth to show us that He has overcome the world. Because of that, we can take heart and have peace. So whenever we are facing trouble, we know that God has never given up on us, so we can never give up on God.

We all know the stories of the sports star who came from humble beginnings. They rose to the top because of hard work. They faced setbacks, but that made them stronger. We can get knocked down in our own lives too. But it's how we respond which will show how we become stronger. When we get back up, it's called resilience. And resilience helps us never give up.

There are probably two main categories that we fall into. The first, we make a lot of mistakes and we know what it's like to get disciplined by our parents, teachers or administrators. The second, we don't make a lot of mistakes but we look at the people who do make mistakes and make judgments based on their decisions. When we look at the story of the adulterous woman, Jesus points out that both s...