Persecution in Central Park

For the last couple weeks in Jr. High Youth group, we have been studying thankfulness (see my last post). Two weeks ago we discussed how Paul was thankful for the community that he was a part of.

This week we discussed Paul's thankfulness for salvation. I think Paul had a little bit better grasp on salvation than we do. Why this is I can only speculate; however, I think it is because getting saved by God was an every day occurrence. If you read through Paul's list of tribulations in 2 Corinthians 11.24ff.:

Five times lashed by the Jews

Three times he was beaten with rods (Acts 16.23)

Once he was stoned (Acts 14.19)

Three times he was shipwrecked (Acts 27)

He was in danger from Jews (Acts 9.23ff.; 9.29; 13.50; 14.5;

He was in danger from Gentiles (Acts 14.5)

He was thrown in prison or under guard (Acts 16.23; 23.35)

Paul seemed to be saved by God a lot during his work. I wonder if that is why Paul seems so much more thankful for the work of Salvation. Salvation, for Paul, is a constant occurrence.

This is what I wanted our jr. highers to understand when we talked about being thankful for salvation. On Wednesday night, our jr. high students met at the north end of Central Park Park. Each group 0f 4 or 5 students was led by a sponsor or parent. Their job was to make the perilous trek 800 yards to the south in to the back room of our church. The room has no windows and only one entrance. Their enemies were 8 of our high school kids with the mission of persecuting our jr. high kids to no end (purple nurples, chest taps, noogies, whatever it takes). Once our students entered the back room I spoke to them about being thankful for their salvation, not only for their evading the persecution, but for their eternal salvation.

I played some gunfire in the background and the muslim call to prayer to let them experience what other Christians are going through around the world. It was a lot of fun. We took communion to end the night; as a celebration of what Jesus did for us to save us from our sins.