How to stop a fight

Not a week goes by that I don't hear about a fight between students at our local high school or middle school. I often have students run up to me on Wednesday night before our youth service to tell me about a fight they saw, a friend that was hurt, or how they were attacked by someone at school. I really get sick of students thinking that fighting is the only way to solve problems!

Whenever I have students that talk about wanting to fight someone I always tell them, "God didn't make you for that!" I always half joke when they tell me that they saw a fight at school by asking, "Why didn't you run into the middle and yell "God didn't make you for this!" to get them to stop fighting?" They usually laugh me off. Usually...

Last night as students were coming in for our service one girl came running up to me her name is Alison. She ran up and said, "Ryan, you will never guess what happened yesterday!"

She said she was walking down a hallway at school and saw a very large crowd of students in the middle. She looked a little closer and saw two boys facing each other walking around in a circle getting ready to fight. So Alison took off running through the crowd, jumped in between the two boys, stuck her hands out and yell, "STOP! God didn't create you for this!" Everyone looked at her funny and the boys and the crowd all walked away. She stopped the fight!

She then said, "But they ended up fighting today! And it was really bad!" I told her how amazing I thought it was that she was willing to step up and speak truth in a crazy situation and not give in to the crowd and animalistic behavior around her.

I read somewhere (I think it was something from Shane Claiborne) the "Violence is for those that have lost their imagination." I challenged my students to use their imagination against violance. What else can you do to help show the beauty and sacredness in each person? What can you do to help call into question the idea that violence is the answer to every problem. What can you do to be a peacemaker?

This Jesus that I worship calls us blessed and children of God if we are peacemakers! May you be blessed today! May you be called a child of God.




"Nothing is so characteristically Christian as being a peacemaker."
– St Basil the Great