Tonight we’re going to talk about fitting in…
Something we all know a little bit about
To start with, we’re going to watch a clip from Never been kissed
If you’ve never seen this film, it about Josie Geller
Josie works for a newspaper
Her first undercover assignment is to go back to collage to find out what is it like
She gets to be 17 again…
The trouble is that she needs to get in with the “popular people” and she’s never been a popular girl,,,
[Never been kissed]
27 min – Josie has just left the class room, and tries to get into her locker
29 min – Josie is told to “get cool”
31 min – She goes to see her brother…”all I wanted is to be accepted”
33 min – back at school, the surveillance van arrives
37 min - @ the party
42 min – Josie falls asleep
44 min – in toilet crying
46 min – walks into the door
37 min – “you can’t just come in here and be popular in one day”
48 min – “I’m sorry, I must of forgot”, “Well may be you should forget about sitting with us two”
In the clip we’ve just seen, Josie was struggling to fit in.
All she ever wanted was to be popular like her brother Rob…but she’s never been that kind of girl…she’s never been “popular”
Have you ever felt like that?
Have you ever changed yourself to try and fit in?
In what way?
Some people buy into the values of their friends
They wear the same clothes, listen to the same music and may even believe the same thing
So would you rather have one friend who likes you for who you are, or have lots of friends who don’t really know you?
Who do some people find it hard to fit in?
Interests
Values
Behaviour
So how important is been popular to you?
We all want to feel accepted…we all need friends
Genesis 2:18 “it is not good for the man to be alone”
The good news is that God accepts us as we are...
Romans 15:7 Page 1161
"Christ accepted you, so you should accept each other…"
Do you think those words actually make a difference?
Do you think Jesus was popular and fitted in?
He was neither one nor the other…
We are told in Luke 4:24 P1010
“I tell you the truth, a prophet is not accepted in his home town”
And he was hardly popular with religious leaders of the time
In the end, his views and message cost him his live…
And this is the person we’re supposed to be like…
The Bible tells us that we are all different.
We each have different gift and talents
Romans 12:4-6 P1157
”Each one of us has a body with many parts, and these parts all have
different uses. In the same way, we are many, but in Christ we are all one
body. Each one is a part of that body, and each part belongs to all the
other parts. We all have different gifts, each of which came because of the
grace God gave us…”
Some of us will always be where the action is – be “popular”
Some will be on the edges…a little bit like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle
So I thought we could finish tonight by thinking about that
What I’d like you to do, is take a piece of the jigsaw
I’d like you to choose thoughtfully…
One piece where you feel that you are…write the names of your friends
Another where you would like to be…write the names of those who are where you’d like to be
[Hand out jigsaw...let them put it together]
[Pray]
Copyright 1998-2004 Nigel Coates