Roots Student Ministry Podcast

Jesus always looked out for those who were overlooked. Whether everyone else cast them aside, or whether their sin has separated them from society, Jesus still engaged and shared the good news that God had for them. When we look at the story of the woman at the well, we see that Jesus loved the Samaritan woman even though Jewish culture did not associate with the Samaritan culture. Through this st...

We can put all our attention on our dating life. We can daydream all day about that crush and it takes our attention away from other things that are more important. But what we think about matters. And we need to look at our lives, including our dating lives, through the lens of Christ. So many thoughts that run through our head can be negative. But we have the power to choose what we think about,...

A relationship inevitably is going to go one of two ways. Either you're going to spend forever with that person, or it's going to end in a breakup. The fact of the matter is that most relationships end in a breakup. And breakups can be hard. But that doesn't mean you have freedom to hurt the other person because of the way you are feeling. It is important to remember that they are still a real per...

It's tempting to want a relationship so bad that it's all you think about. Or when you are in a relationship, you drop all your friends and spend all your time with your significant other. But when you do that, you miss out on a lot of other good things you have going on in your life, you alienate people, and you end up losing yourself. You were never meant to have a narrow minded focus on any one...

Dating can be a complicated subject in High School. Many high schoolers are looking for "The One". Maybe not the one to marry, but at least the one to be in a relationship and make them happy throughout their high school lives. When it comes to dating, gaining and applying wisdom is the best way to figure out how to think about relationships. When you apply the wisdom, you realize that becoming th...

When you go through hard times, it feels lonely. The great thing about Jesus coming to this earth is that He understands what we are going through. He knows what it feels like to go through tough times because He went through tough times. Not only does Jesus get how you feel, but He can help you. Because of Jesus, you can know that you're never alone.

We all make mistakes and we all sin. And sin is damaging because it always takes something away from someone and creates distance. Most of the time, sin hurts us or hurts someone else. It hurts friendships, dreams, relationships, your self-worth, your health, and any of the other things you value most. But sin is the very reason why Jesus died on the cross. We tend to let our past hold us back fro...

For many of us, we go throughout life making decisions based on whether or not that decision will make our lives better or not. We can do that same thing with church and our relationship with God as well. In turn, we start to think about our faith being more about rules, so we can decide not to attend church or engage our faith on a regular basis. But Jesus came down to this earth not to establish...

Jesus came to fulfill all the Old Testament Law...but why is there still bad in this world? Why do bad things happen like war, hunger, racism, sexism, genocide, injustice and pandemics still happen? Well, Jesus had a plan for making wrong things right. It wasn’t just miracles, and it wasn’t temporary politics when He was walking on this earth. His plan was us . We, as Christians, are the ones who...

40% of middle school and high school students feel lonely or disconnected from others most of the time. Maybe you have felt that way too. The great news is that Jesus came down on earth to show us that God cares for us. You can feel distant from friends and family but God is close to you. You can be confident that because of Jesus, you can be close to God. You are never alone.

Many of us probably think of prayer as a way to ask God for something. Maybe for him to fix a problem you are going through. Or maybe it's for something good to happen that you are expecting. Or maybe it's to do well on your math test coming up. For many of us, prayer is a one way street...just us talking to God. But what if we saw prayer in a different way? What if we saw prayer as more than just...

When we're praying in church, sometimes we get the idea that we have to use fancy words, formal words or even fake words to sound more spiritual to God. Maybe even if we pray the right way, then we'll get what we want. But the point of prayer is not what you say to God, but rather about being near and close to God. The way we get close to God is similar to how we get close to friends...we have rea...

If you want your faith to grow, you need to establish spiritual habits in your life. You cannot just expect God to grow your faith while just showing up to church on Sunday and that is all you do throughout the week. In order to create good spiritual habits, you need to start small and continue to grow those habits. Just like any sport or instrument that you play, there is always a starting point....

We will all go through hard turning points in our lives. These turning points can effect our faith in two different ways: It can pull us away from God or push us towards God. When we look at the story of Jesus and Lazarus, we can know that Jesus is with us in our emotions throughout these turning points. When we acknowledge that God is with us, these turning points can grow our faith.

It's easy to go to church and listen to sermons on a regular basis, but when you actually start to put into practice when you learn, then you can really see what God wants to do through you. A main part of our faith is serving others. When you truly learn who Jesus is, He changes your heart to learn to love others better. Whether it's starting small like serving within your life group, or somethin...

Part of growing up is developing a personal faith on your own. The problem with trying to do it alone, is that you won't be able to grow as fast. We need other people to help us grow to our greatest potential in the faith. If we surround ourselves with the right people, they can help move our faith in the right direction. It all comes down to the point where real faith grows with other people.

As we grow older, we easily grasp on to the faith of someone we look up to. It could be our parents faith, or because our grandma believes. But when you have someone else's faith, it's easy to come to church every week and go through the motions. You may even pay attention to the messages every week. But that is a counterfeit faith that believes because someone else believes. This, in fact, is not...

Whether you have been hurt or you have hurt someone, it takes awhile for the relationship to go back to the way it was. It's all because healing takes time. There is no quick fix. There’s no “feeling better” when you forgive. There’s no immediate reward. There’s no way to get your emotions to follow what you know is true deep down. There’s no way to make it all immediately better—for you or for so...

Many times when we get hurt, we want to shove the other person out of our lives...we want to cancel them. But it is important to remember that Jesus canceled our debts when He hung up on that cross. If we can be forgiven of anything, why can't we forgive others who have hurt us? We have to remember that no one is perfect, and we have to offer a little grace to those who hurt us. It's then that we...

Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping that the person you are not forgiving will be hurt from it. Unforgiveness leads to bitterness in our own hearts which leads us to be the one carrying around the hurt. The only way we can let go of that bitterness and that grudge that we are holding on to is by forgiving the person who hurt us. It's ok to feel hurt, it's ok to feel angry, but forgive...

We can easily think that "joy" is just better than "happiness". If you are joy filled, then you are always happy. But joy is deeper than that. Joy doesn’t ignore the hard stuff in life, but it doesn’t let the hard stuff determine how you feel. When we look at the Christmas story, we see that Jesus coming was good news for all people. That Good News allows us to experience joy in all areas of our l...

When we look at Christmas, there really is not a lot of peace about it. There is a lot of chaos in our schedules, at the stores, and our packages are coming late in the mail. When we look at the Christmas story, Jesus came to bring peace. Not peace to our circumstances, but peace in our hearts. So when things in your life seem to be crazy around you, bring the peace of Jesus with you to those who...

As we start our new Christmas series, we look at the life of the shepherds who heard from the Angels that the Messiah had come. Before that time, there was 400 years of silence from God. People weren't hearing from prophets, they weren't hearing signs from God...nothing. But that special day of Jesus' birth, the noise was turned all the way up and people could now learn what God's character was li...

When we look at the upside down Kingdom, our lives are supposed to look different. The power that we have is meant to lift others up, not tear them down. We do this by loving others well. Jesus is a prime example for us to use power well. In this message, we look at what it looks like to lead ourselves well and lead others well.

We may have a lot of leaders in our lives who do not use their leadership well. You may not even have respect for them. But in the upside down Kingdom that God wants for us, we are to honor those who we may not respect. We need to honor all of those who are in authority, even if we do not feel like it. In today's message, we learn about how David still was honorable even when he had the chance to...