Every person on the planet deals with three basic questions:

• Who am I?
• Do I Matter?
• Am I loved?

In youth ministry I see students trying to answer these questions everyday. I see it in the way they behave, what activities they pursue, the way the dress, and the way they interact with one another. However most adults still wrestle with these questions too.

To be completely honest we never stop trying to answer these questions. It isn’t as though one day we wake up at 27 and we no longer have acne and suddenly have all the answers to life’s journey. The acne still crops up every once in a while and these queries still stare us in the face every single day.

The problem with these three questions is that they rely on us to answer them by ourselves. It is up to you and I to indiviualy answer these questions under our own power. I have a hard time making a decision at the gas pump whether or not I want a receipt after my transaction. I cannot even begin to answer these life-defining questions on my own. I’m limited.

I have been working through Rick Lawrence’s newest ministry book Jesus-Centered Youth Ministry and Lawrence reframes these three questions in a way that turns the focus away from ourselves and send us running to Jesus for the answers.

Here are the questions I am now asking:

• Who Do I Say Jesus Is?
• Who Does Jesus Say I Am?
• Who Do I Say I Am?

I have been working through these questions for the last few weeks. Tomorrow we will look at the first one: Who Do I Say Jesus Is? I hope that you can join in on the conversation. See you tomorrow.