Student leadership: Day 2

Great second day here at the Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry Student Leadership Conference. Today's sessions covered three of the biblical purposes for the church: evangelism, fellowship and discipleship. Here are a few highlights from the main messages today:

EVANGELISM/Jeff Maguire, speaker

• Good deeds are as important to evangelism as the words we speak
• Evangelism happens in the context of our whole lives
• A good deed is anything connected to what we do or live that reflects the image and glory of God
• Our intended purpose is to reflect the image of God into the world
• Christians can choose to condemn the world, copy the world, or create good

FELLOWSHIP/Video + Doug Fields, speaker

• Growth happens through friendships filled with trust, acceptance, investment and concern
• It never stops with you; someone invested in you, so you should turn around and invest in someone else
• "Fellowship" is a deep but abused word in the Church
• We're better together
• True fellowship happens when we KNOW each other, SHOW each other when we're headed to trouble, and GROW together in our relationships with Jesus Christ
• Fellowship should be intentional
• What would it be like to REALLY be known?
  

DISCIPLESHIP/Matt McGill, speaker

• The idea of discipleship really means having a friendship with God
• To be friends with God is to become like Him
• A friend of God delights in beauty
• Do we love what God loves?
• A friend of God is driven by compassion
• Compassion is a reflex that responds to others; it can be a slow reflex or a well-developed one
• What moves you and grabs your attention?
• A friend of God discovers the truth
• To get a new perspective means admitting your last perspective was wrong
• If you don't look back and see foolishness and mistakes in your past, then you're probably not growing spiritually