Recreation, Relationship and Restoration

Over the past few months I have been seeking God about His vision for the Friday Night Teen Ministry. We have recently switched the main focus of the ministry to recreation. When God first began to show me to do this, I was a little confused. I thought, "God, how can recreation be beneficial to these kids spiritually?" He showed me that as we provide and participate in recreational activities it would open the door for relationship with these kids. Then through that relationship, they would open up to us. As they would open up to us, we could bring restoration to their lives.
Last night we were able to see this in action. In the prayer time that we have before the kids arrive, we asked God to set up moments where the kids would open up and through Jesus and the words He gives us, bring restoration to their lives. Look at what God did;

• One boy shared with a volunteer that his cousin was recently shot and killed and the volunteer was able to pray for him.
• One of the girls shared the problems she is having with a guy she is seeing. He is not respecting her and he's treating her bad. A volunteer and I were able to tell her how valuable she is and challenged her to cut ties with this boy.
• One of the boys was treating some of the other kids bad, so a volunteer and I confronted him about it. He was very defensive at first, but when we told him that we loved him and that's why couldn't just let him get away with it, his attitude changed. We believe that could have been the first time he was confronted in love instead of anger.

I'm looking and expecting for more God conversations to happen between us and these precious teens!