Tonight was a great night in THP Students!
We kicked off the night with… Legos!
We separated the students into two groups, and each group had a team captain who had the instructions for the LEGO set. Each person ran up one at a time, and the leader instructed them on where to put each piece. It got insanely competitive and intense as the teams worked to put things together!
After our game, we sat down to begin our main lesson.
School has just started, and for many of our students, they are in environments that aren’t the friendliest towards Christianity. So the question is: how should they act and respond to the world around them, and how do we operate effectively?
To the latter question, we need to remember that we are most effective when we work with others. Every person in the Body of Christ has a role and a purpose. While some of our students may go to different schools, they are not alone. They have each other to help encourage and lift each other up.
I shared with the students about the events that took place this past weekend for Celeste and me and how, through our personal ministry of Geek Devotions, we had the opportunity to be present at a convention full of people. We had several amazing moments on the con floor, but we weren’t operating alone; we had a team helping us. Their presence and support not only helped us do more but also strengthened us physically and emotionally.
In our game, the students were all following the same set of instructions, but each had a part to play in putting it together. In the same way, we have to remember the teachings of Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:12-14
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
We are not designed to do things on our own; we are one body created to do something great together. THP Students is a group made up of many members, just as THP Students is but one part of The Healing Place. Our students need each other.
Because we had a team at the con, we saw some amazing things, but many of them were the fruit of one thing: being consistent in caring for people but always representing Christ. In turn, for our students to be effective in sharing the Gospel with their classmates and loved ones, they need to be consistent in their faith.
But how do we foster that?
This is where we reminded our students about a key mindset of THP Students. This is their ministry.
I pulled out an oversized Jenga set and stacked it up. Put together, it’s stable. Stable enough that someone could even stand on it. But what happens when you remove pieces? It becomes unstable. That tower of pieces represents the student ministry. It is a stable place for people to grow and learn to be consistent in their faith, but, just like removing pieces from the tower, if we aren’t present, the group as a whole isn’t as effective at lifting people up and helping them stand.
When looking at building a culture of helping each other grow, we have to make sure the foundation is right.
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.
For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
1 Co 3:10–11.
I took apart the giant Jenga set, took the bottom three blocks, and wrote “Christ” on them. Our foundation is Christ. Everything we do in THP Student Ministries at The Healing Place is focused on the Bible, focused on Jesus Christ. We have to make sure that’s our foundation. To be an effective leader for our students, I need my foundation to be focused on Christ.
This is what leads to our response time. I took one large block, wrote my name on it, and laid it on top of the 3 that said “Christ.” I then passed each student a block and gave them a Sharpie to write down their own names, symbolically saying, “I’m building my life on Christ, and I’m going to work to help make a stable place for people to grow in Christ.” Then we gave each student a SMALLER piece that says THP Students 2026 to remind them that they have a place and they play an important part in the ministry as a whole.
Adventures in Student Ministry 