And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Group projects are disliked across the board. No matter what the subject or the topic, there is usually an audible groan when a teacher announces that the students will be working in teams to complete a project. The reason that no one likes group projects is that, very quickly, the group falls into an imbalance between the hard working students and those that are perfectly content with having their work competed by said hard working students. Inevitably someone in the group will not pull their weight and do their assigned piece of the project and someone else will have to do it for them in order for the whole group to not get marked down. Sometimes this lack of effort can cause major friction in the group and even fights to occur.
I, thankfully, have not had to endure one of these projects for a number of years now, but a few weeks ago I had a conversation with some of our church’s youth who were venting about their struggles with an English group project where they had to write a paper as a group. The whole premise of this type of group project baffles me. I could not imagine writing a paper with other students. Everyone writes differently and has different phrasings or ways that they put paragraphs together that might clash with someone else’s way of doing it. Even you now might be reading this and thinking to yourself that you would phrase what I am saying differently than I did. The students would really have to work hard to obtain cohesion with each other to make the paper readable and so that others would be able to understand the message they were trying to get across. It seems impossible.
In his letter to the Colossians, Paul is like a teacher giving out a group assignment. In the project instructions he makes it very clear that they are all one group and they need to figure out a way to finish their project peacefully. Their project topic is Christ. Their task is to glorify God with everything they say and do….all the time. This was a group project for the early church that we are still working on as God’s church today.
Most teachers give check in dates for teams to turn in parts of their projects for review. This is to make sure that the students are on track and everyone is where they need to be. Advent is our yearly check in date. It is a yearly reminder that we are called to something bigger than ourselves. It gives us a chance to assess if we need to change something about how we have been living. Paul knows that we will all struggle. We will not get it right all the time. We will not have perfect harmony with everyone at all times. It might be the hardest project that we have ever been given. But together, Paul has hope we can accomplish it, because of our group leader – Jesus Christ himself. So, whether you are one of those hard-working students or one who has slacked off a bit on the assignment, take some time this advent season to check in with your team members to find out how we can all live in and through Christ all year round.
Written by Matt Milford
What am I passionate about at Heritage?
I am passionate about our youth program and helping them to grow in their faith and knowledge of God.
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