Last night we welcomed guest speaker Sean Roberts, who’s the youth pastor at King’s River Church in Bradenton and long time friend of Bethany and I. Coming off a relationship series, we were hesitant of doing another relationship talk during this series even though relationships are as “real life” as it gets, especially among our teenagers.
Sean delivered an incredible message on how we navigate the difference types or relationships in our lives. We broke up the four types of relationships in the following: Membership in a social group
- Membership in a social group
- Interpersonal friendships
- Romantic/intimate relationships
- Household relationship
Sean took us through the differences between these types of relationships and described to us how each of these relationships play a different role in our lives. He used the analogy of a tree. The leaves representing membership in a social group are the most temporary of the group. Leaves fall and whether away and in many cases, you will never see them again. Leaves come and go. Interpersonal friendships are those deeper relationships you have with friends you’re with more frequently. It’s your friend that has your back and represents the branches of a tree. While branches are certainly more stable, they can still break. The difference between a leaf and branches is when a branch breaks it leaves a knot. We feel these relationships when it falls apart. We’ve all been there. The romantic/intimate relationships represent a trunk. Most people believe the trunk is the strongest part of the tree. It’s the base for the branches and the leaves. However, even a trunk is not 100% stable and can break. However, when the trunk breaks, it affects all the other relationships and can cause permanent damage. But what makes a trunk stronger are its roots. Your family represents your roots. When your roots are strong, then everything else is stronger and therefore your relationships are stronger.
But what happens when your roots (family relationships) are broken. Many of our students come from broken homes. Divorce is very common and even for students that have two parents, there may be a parent that’s still absent in their household. What do you do? That’s where God comes in. God can replace those broken roots and give you the roots to make all your relationships strong.
Sean used Ephesians 3:14-19.
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, May have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
After the message, Sean offers an opportunity for students to respond as we headed into worship, and once again we had a few students immediately respond. Later that evening, I had students reach out to me and tell me how they were impacted by the message. We have students trying to navigate very complicated relationships and it’s our job as parents, youth leaders, church family, and friends to make sure they’re roots are in God first.
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