This lesson was originally taught by Rev. Bobbi Morehead, Ph.D. to the “Youth Workers” split session of the Michigan District Holiday Youth Convention on December 30, 2016. This lesson follows the E.X.C.E.L. teaching agenda.

E.NGAGE- (Greet and give bandaid) 

• HANDSHAKE / greet at the door 
• CELL PHONE PICTURE SHARE (find someone with a birthday in the same month as you). Why is this picture important to you?

X.PLORE- (Good things- MINGLE ACTIVITY)

• HIGH FIVE- think about a youth worker/ leader that has deeply impacted your life. What is one word that describes this person.
• SECRET HAND SHAKE- share why are you are involved in youth ministry?
• SHOULDER BUMP- share your number one prayer request right now concerning the students you serve. We will all pray together.

C.OMMUNICATE

• The main core of today’s message is from Vickie Oliver’s book, “Birthing Your Burden in Children’s Ministry” from pages 45-48:

CHAPTER THREE – THE BURDEN GROWS STRONGER

Every day my burden grew stronger, even more than I would have imagined. I saw more and more needs in the altar and God was using me to minister to those needs. One night at my house I was talking to Jesus about so many people, young and old, with broken hearts. Sitting in my prayer chair I prayed to Jesus about people sitting on our church pews without joy in their hearts. These people have never found their place in the body of Christ because it takes all of their energy just to come to church and survive. Many take Doctor-prescribed mind-altering drugs. Now I know that some people need medical help, but many just need healing from a broken heart.

I moved to the floor to pray, and as I prayed the burden became so intense I thought I would surely die. I was finally able to let the peace of Jesus wash over me and I drifted off to sleep right there on my living room floor.

I dreamed I was in an operating room. Nurses and surgeons were busy working on a blond-headed boy on the operating table. I was standing against the wall doing my best to stay out of the way, and I felt so out of place. I was attempting to get to the door to make my escape, but my attention was drawn back to the operating table when I heard doctors and nurses speaking urgently and saw them grabbing supplies and equipment and working swiftly over the patient. I looked up at the heart monitor and saw it had flatlined. I knew this meant the patient’s heart had stopped beating and that he had died. That’s what the commotion was all about.

Now I really wanted to leave. I inched toward the door while everyone continued to work feverishly on the body. The situation seemed hopeless and then the room fell silent. The surgeon step back from the operating table and turned to me. His eyes penetrated my very soul. He said, “We’ve done all we can do, now it’s your turn.” I thought, What can I do? The surgeon gently nudged me toward the table where the boy lay. He said, “Only Jesus can mend and a broken heart.” The young boy’s heart was broken and the surgeon expected me to do something about it. In my dream I wanted desperately to help the young boy and began to cry as if my own heart were breaking.

I woke up crying, feeling the presence of Jesus in the living room with me. Jesus said, “I want you to preach a message called ‘What God will never do.’ I want you to construct a four-foot broken heart.” Jesus gave me the exact dimensions of the heart and I got busy working on it the very next day. The heart was actually two pieces that fit together in a large crack in the middle.

The message was about how your heart can be broken and who can break it. When your heart is broken, your joy leaks out the crack. But the good news is Jesus will never break your heart. He will never hurt you, and Jesus can mend any broken heart. I planned to open Band-Aids to give to everyone who came to the altar. They could place their band Band-Aid over the crack on the broken heart, representing Jesus binding up their own broken heart.

In one particular church, a pastor came forward, took an unwrapped Band-Aid, and put it over the cracked place in the heart. He picked up the microphone and tears began to well up in his eyes. Weeping, he said, “I need to tell this church something. I know many of you have wondered why we, as a church, do not support foreign missionary work.

“When I was a little boy, my dad pastored this church. One evening a visiting missionary was the speaker. I was sitting on the front row in a folding chair. All through the service, a boy sitting behind me kept kicking my chair and messing with me. Finally after the missionary got up to speak, I had taken all I could from that kid and I turned around and told him to stop it. The missionary came down off the platform and said, ‘Son you better learn how to act in God’s house. If you were my son I’d take you outside and teach you how to act.’ That embarrassed my dad and he took me out in front of the whole congregation. I tried to tell him what happened but he wouldn’t listen. He whipped me and took me back inside in front of the whole church.

“I will never forget how humiliated and hurt I was. I hated that missionary. It has affected me all these years and I just couldn’t rise above it no matter what I did. Tonight I’ve realized I have had a broken place in my heart that Jesus needs to mend. When I put the Band-Aid on that heart, I forgave that missionary for what he did to a little boy so many years ago.

“All the missionary sow that night was some boys messing around in church. He may not have handled the situation just right, but we all make mistakes. Sometimes our mistakes can cost others a great deal. I realized that night that many people have broken places in their heart and the joy in the Holy Ghost leaks out the cracks. But like everything else, Jesus is the answer!”

• Every issue we deal with in youth ministry (or any ministry) is related to a broken heart.
• What JESUS can NEVER DO- break your heart
• What only JESUS CAN DO- HEAL YOUR BROKEN HEART.

Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.

E.MPOWER

• We must first acknowledge and allow God to heal our own broken hearts. This healing flows through us and gives those that we serve the courage to acknowledge their pain and hurts and ask Jesus for healing.

• Take your bandaid out of your pocket. Think about any cracks in your own heart that you need God to heal. I am going to speak scriptures of healing over you right now. God is going to seal the cracks in your heart so that your joy can be restored because the joy of the Lord is your strength. The joy of the Lord is my strength.

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

Ephesians 3:20-21 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Micah 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Psalms 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Romans 8:38-39 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

L.AUNCH

SONG – ONLY JESUS CAN SATISFY YOUR SOUL LYRICS

The world will try to satisfy
That longing in your soul.
You may search the wide world o’er
But you’ll be just as before!
You’ll never find true satisfaction
Until you’ve found the Lord,
For only Jesus can satisfy your soul.
Satisfy your soul, only

CHORUS:

Only Jesus can satisfy your soul,
And only He can change your heart and make you whole.
He’ll give you peace you never knew,
(Sweet), love and joy and heaven too,
For only Jesus can satisfy your soul!
If you could have the fame and fortune,
All the wealth you could obtain.
Yet you have not Christ within,
Your living here would be in vain.
There’ll come a time when death shall call you
Riches cannot help you then,
For only Jesus can satisfy your soul.