Hi

Our Sports Car

Eve, Felix, Sam, Anthony, Yun, Saniy, Brian

Lifestyle Auction

Today we broke up into our small groups so that we could, as a team, bid on different lifestyles. Each group was give $86,400 to spend. Below are results of the bidding (going from my memory) the choices we could bid on:

• Being an Artistic Genius: SOLD $3,500

• Being the owner of a sports car: SOLD $4,000 (Ours)

• Being a Millionaire: SOLD $15,000 (Ours)

• Having power over people: SOLD $10,000 (Ours)

• Being a famous Actor/Movie star: SOLD $16,0000

• Being a top sports athlete: SOLD $15,000

Actually this guy is a billianare

• Being in a good family: SOLD $20,000

• Being the owner of many slaves: SOLD $15,000 (Ours)

• Being popular with the opposite sex: SOLD $30,000

• Having many friends: SOLD $20,000

• Having good health: SOLD $55,000

Materialism Wins

My group bought the sports car, being a millionare, having many slaves and power over people.

When each group got up to justify their purchases most of them expanded the materialistic impact of their purchase. For example the Artistic Genius argued that this could mean they are a famous actor or TV celebrity who makes lots of money.

My Team

We had very early consensus, family, marriage, being popular were not valued but money, power over people, many slaves were high on our agenda. It was a fun game bidding against the other teams, pushing up their bids and then laughing when they ended up getting it.

86,400 Seconds

Power over people

Owner of many slaves, actually a Nike Factory

Apparently there are 86,400 seconds in one day. What you end up becoming depends on how you spend your time each day. The more value something the more time you will spend trying to get it or achieve it.

What we Value

Here is what the students valued the most. X3 students said they valued friends. One said money. One said musical talent and one said not materialism but family and values.

Inward

Most often our values relate to us. We want to have money, friends, health, popularity etc. The problem with these values are that they are inward. We are looking to please our selves. We are following what we want, we set the agenda. Now in the real world our agenda can easily be upset, we have a fight with our friends, we get ripped off or spend our money, we hurt our friends and quickly become unpopular. Or perhaps we have an accident or get sick and everything we value is gone or unreachable.

Outward

I didn’t get to share this today but I would have liked to have encourage the students to value something that is outside themselves, something that they can do which is not for themselves. Instead of wanting friends why not want to be a friend to someone. Instead of looking to make yourself happy why not have the goal to help other people. This goes against the grain. Jesus teaches that it is better to give that to receive, to serve rather than to be served. He says those who are important in his kingdom are those who are humble.