20 Oct Jesus is Greater Than….

Todd Fetters, pastor of Devonshire UB church (Harrisburg, Pa.) spoke recently at a youth retreat in Ocean City, N. J. He spoke on the theme “Jesus is Greater Than….” to the 18 students and 9 adults attending. He wrote on his blog about the unique commitment time on Saturday night.

“About a dozen students and adults came forward to commit something in their lives that they were making greater than Jesus. A relationship? Their iPod? Their Facebook or MySpace pages? Their career? Anything. The challenge just kept coming at them, “Who are you making famous with your life? Is it Jesus or you?”

“I shared personally with them that my life has been a series of moments where I had to make Jesus greater than something in my life, i.e. my music, my relationships, my career, etc….Each student and/or adult came to the front of the room to physically turn a makeshift ‘greater-than’ sign (>) that stood beside the hanging letters, J-E-S-U-S. With ‘lesser-than’ pointing at ‘Jesus,’ each individual turned the sign so that ‘lesser-than’ was aimed at them and ‘greater-than’ was directed at J-E-S-U-S.

“As a result of this retreat, I’ve heard students say that they needed to take a closer look at their Myspace and Facebook pages to make changes that will bring less attention to themselves and more on Jesus. Others are going to read a chapter a day from the Gospels and meet weekly to talk about what they are reading. Some were convicted about their movie/entertainment choices and are putting greater time into deciding if the movie is something that helps them honor God.”

It’s great to hear stories like that.