Alive! small group discussion - gossip/condemnation

Tonight our topic at Alive (both iConnect and youth) was a heavier one. In light of Amanda Todd's story being international news after her horrible bullying and suicide last week, it was on my heart to talk about it. I know kids have been talking about bullying this week in school, at We Day, and hopefully with parents as well.

Instead of focusing on bullying, I talked about the potentially hundreds of people behind the scenes - the "yous and mes" of the story who talked about it, who dropped her as a friend, who condemned her mistakes. I talked about how her story might be famous but stuff like that happens in every school across the country every day of the week.

In our small groups, the students were challenged to think of ways not just to ignore gossip but to stop it. They were challenged to think twice about the reasons they drop friends or consider others "unworthy" to befriend. In my talk, I challenged them to think twice about whether Jesus would agree with that condemnation, judgement, or gossip... sure, we might sin differently than people who make obvious mistakes, but using ourselves as the gold standard to judge others is doing exactly what the Pharisees did. Jesus didn't hang out with the dudes who counted their sins (and hid them) to make sure they sinned less than everyone else (and looked great). He didn't hang out with the people who considered others to be "scum." He hung out with the people who sinned - and badly (by human standards). He hung out with that "scum." He called THOSE people to be his closest companions.

In small groups we read Mark 2:13-17 and brainstormed what kind of people in our schools we would consider "scum" and talked about how Jesus would treat them. We came up with practical ways to reach out to others and thought about how far our words and actions can ripple.

If you haven't watched Amanda Todd's video, it's easy to find on YouTube. Watch it - and look for the "behind the scenes" people who could have made her story so much different. Like I told the kids, the creeps that bullied her will never truly go away as long as there is evil in the world... some people are held so tightly in Satan's hands... but we can do what we can to change other people's stories. Amanda's last statement wasn't that she was depressed because of bullying (although that's absolutely what started it). She said she was depressed and didn't know what else to do because she had nobody- even though she was surrounded by people. How could even one person have changed her story? What if that person reflected the love of Jesus?