BibleSponge

The news today told a story that could represent the epitome of the tragic state of youth and family discipleship today.  Because of lack of effort of family discipling and not showing them the sovereign, powerful, loving savior, Jesus Christ.  End result, they turn to what the world can offer, and flood themselves with it while their soul dies out.

The Intelligencer Wheeling News-Register reported of a teen who died after being struck by a train while walking along the tracks.  My thoughts are prayers are with the family.  I hope the young man knew Jesus.

Sheriff James Hoskins said Andrew Haslam, a 2008 graduate of Valley High School and resident of Porter's Falls, was wearing headphones while walking at about 6:55 p.m. and did not hear the audible warnings the engineer sounded to alert Haslam a train was approaching him from behind.

Failure At Home

If we as parents continue to fail to hear warnings of the declining number of youth by their freshman year of college at record rates, it will have fatal results.

We have started an organized form of family discipleship in our house.  “Organized” in the sense of time set aside without TV, cell phones, etc. gathered around in the living room.  It doesn’t have to be fancy or setup with an order of worship.  It is simply time gathered where we pray, worship, and study the Word together as a family.  We start out with a song on CD while in an attitude of prayer, take on a random topic (the JCQs are awesome conversation starters, get them here), discuss it with scripture that addresses it, talk about things in our lives we need to pray about with each other, close by a round-robin type prayer and another song.

I’m not saying this is the only way to do family discipleship, but it is a start.  We are currently meeting 3 nights a week and eventually will try every night.  That’s how important this is.  That is how much I want my kids to have the Word intertwined so much that when their out of my sight at the mall, at their friends, at college, etc. they have a prism to filter their decisions through, the Word of God.  They cannot develop that one or two days a week, with an hour here and an hour there.  (Not that there’s anything wrong with fellowship with other believers, but it shouldn’t be the primary source.)

“Family Driven Faith” by Voddie Baucham is a great place to start with family discipleship.  You can buy it here.  It is a book that every parent desiring to raise godly children should read.  Perhaps book review coming soon?  Also check out “What He Must Be…If He Wants to Marry My Daughter”.  This is an invaluable helper not only for fathers and daughters, but for fathers and sons as well.

Failure At Church

If we as youth leaders fail to deliver a real picture of Jesus, including sovereignty, power, love, forgiveness, righteousness, etc., the world will be happy to step up and fill that void.

When showing Christ to youth, the most obvious way is to live it out in front of them.  One thing I’ve learned about youth over time is that they are incredible judges of character and often will see right through a false pretense.  And once you’ve lost that credibility, it’s next to impossible to get any back.

One thing I learned from Rick Lawrence in “Jesus Centered Youth Ministry” is that you can’t give youth the candy-coated “Jesus is your friend” version of the Gospel and expect them to recognize it with the importance they should.  We need to get beyond the “Jesus is only love” mantra and give a complete picture.  Let me ask you this,

if you had to walk down a dark alley, the alley representing all the garbage in the world around, in the middle of the night, with thieves, killers, sex addicts, drug addicts, etc. at every turn, are you going to want a “lovey-dovey friend” to go with you or a mighty warrior versed in all types of urban warfare with zero chance of failure who cares enough to give His life for yours?

That’s what I thought.  So we have to give youth the real Jesus.  The Jesus who will resist the temptations of this world and rebuke the enemy (Matthew 4:1-11).  The Jesus who cares enough to weep with us (John 11:35).  The Jesus who overpowers death (Matthew 28:1-10).  Once they get a hold of this, the Holy Spirit is more than capable of working in their lives without us having to put on a dog and pony show. Amen!

JS