Discovering the First Step as an Ambassador for… | UMC YoungPeople
Connecting young people and their adult leaders to God, the church, and the world
25
March 2019

Discovering the First Step as an Ambassador for Christ

By Scott Meier

An ambassador is someone who serves in an official capacity as a representative of an individual, institution, or government. 2 Corinthians 5: 20 reminds Christians that they are Ambassadors of Jesus. This activity will help students look into an issue in their world and discover a first step they can take to solve it.

As a group, come up with some issues facing:

  • Your School (such as bullying)
  • Your Community (such as homelessness)
  • Our Country (such as divisiveness)
  • Our World (such as extreme poverty or human trafficking)

After you come up with a list of several items for each area, reduce it to one issue per area. You can do this by consensus or by vote.

If your group is larger, break into smaller groups and assign one area to a group. If your group is small, choose one or two areas to talk about.

Then ask the question, “What can a group of students our size that live in our area do about this issue?”

The goal is to take an issue and think of a realistic way that it can attempt to be solved, in the light of our being Ambassadors for Christ.

Once you have an idea of how students could do something about it boil it down to a first action by asking this question: “What is the very fist step that needs to be taken to begin putting this plan into action?”

If you have broken up into small groups, come back together and share. You may find through this that there are issues your group wants to tackle in the future.

Note: About 10 years ago my group of students did something similar. As a result, we decided to collect shoes to send to those in need overseas. To date we have collected and sent over 2500 pairs of shoes to people in need all around the world.

Scott has served in student ministry for over 30 years, the past 24 years at McFarlin Memorial United Methodist Church in Norman, Oklahoma. Having grown up in an incredible and life-changing youth ministry at Pioneer United Methodist Church in Walla Walla, Washington, Scott got his start at Simpson United Methodist Church in Pullman, Washington while a student at Washington State University. Scott has a passion for missions and leadership development, and desires to create life-long disciples for Jesus Christ. Scott and his wife Kristin have a little girl, Laurel Kate.