We have had many new families and students coming to both our church and our student ministry weekly gatherings. Because of this, I thought I’d break down the purpose of each of our meeting times. At the end, I’ll give some observations as to the fruit that this is bearing.

We meet on Wednesday nights from 6:30-8pm. This time is designed to introduce students to who Jesus is. Not only do we want our students to come, we want them to bring their friends. We have a hang out/fellowship time from 6:30-7:00, then a relevant message about Jesus followed by small group time. In their small group, they dig deeper into Scripture, discuss the text, and talk about what they learned. Again, this is ground level, foundational stuff; we’re trying to teach who Jesus is and introduce them to the love of Christ.

The next “step” for involvement or growth would be on Sunday mornings. We meet from 8:45-9:45am. Here, we teach right from Scripture, using the Faithweaver material, which takes a student through the main teachings of the Bible in 3 years. Currently, both our high school and middle school groups meet together but this will be changing after the new year. The material here builds on the foundations laid on Wednesday nights. We go deeper into Scripture, and focus on application of spiritual truths. Here, our goal is to introduce them to what it means to be a disciple of Christ. If Wednesday night is the foundation, Sundays are the walls.

The deepest level of growth takes place on Sunday nights from 6:00-8:00pm. This time is a straight Bible study. Many of our studies on this night are multi-week studies and the students are required to purchase their own material and commit to doing the work. We just finished a 9-week session in which we used Henry Blackaby’s “Experiencing God” material. Next up, beginning January 6 is the “Why?” study, which will be 6-weeks long. Continuing the analogy of the building, this time of study would be the roof and finishing touches- how their discipleship affects their lives on a daily basis.

Here’s what we are seeing as a result of how we’re currently “doing” ministry. Many of the kids who only attend our Wednesday night meeting do not know who Jesus is beyond the intellectual; He is simply not real in their lives. For some students who attend on Sunday mornings, but NOT on Wednesday nights, they struggle with the application because they have no idea who Jesus is; there is no foundation.

As a ministry team, we would appreciate your thoughts and prayers as we wait on the LORD on this topic. We also ask that you would evaluate the spiritual needs of you and your family and involve yourselves in the direction(s) that you feel the LORDs leading.

Next year, our student ministry is going on 2 mission trips. Each student who wants to participate is being asked as a part of the application to answer a question or two about their relationship with Jesus. Many are struggling with those questions. I came across a joke today on the internet while thinking about the question, "Who is Jesus?" Here's the joke...

"Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, and James Cone find themselves all at the same time at Caesarea Philippi. Who should come along but Jesus, and he asks the four famous theologians the same Christological question, “Who do you say that I am?”

Karl Barth stands up and says: “You are the totaliter aliter, the vestigious trinitatum who speaks to us in the modality of Christo-monism.”

Not prepared for Barth's brevity, Paul Tillich stumbles out: “You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and the ground of all possibilities.”

Reinhold Niebuhr gives a cough for effect and says, in one breath: “You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming oughtness in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and brokenness in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.”

Finally James Cone gets up, and raises his voice: “You are my Oppressed One, my soul's shalom, the One who was, who is, and who shall be, who has never left us alone in the struggle, the event of liberation in the lives of the oppressed struggling for freedom, and whose blackness is both literal and symbolic.”

And Jesus writes in the sand, “Huh?”"

Hilarious. But, isn't that the way we often think of Jesus? When someone asks us who Jesus is, we feel put on the spot like we have to give some deep, 20 minute long theological answer.

Jesus once posed this very same question to his followers. We can read about it in Matthew 13. Jesus and the gang are in Caesarea Philippi, and he asks the gang, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?". His followers reply, "some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." Jesus then asks the stunner..."But what about you? Who do you say I am?" I love the simplicity of Peter's response, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Peter is then praised for it. His simple response.


Who do YOU say that Jesus is?

From Salvo Magazine, comes an interesting article on "fame". In talking with many of our kids, they too have the desire to be famous. Here's the link to the article itself, with some highlights posted below.


"A Pew Research Center poll of 579 18 to 25-year-olds released in January revealed that to 81 percent of them, getting rich is their generation’s first or second most important life goal, and 51 percent said the same about being famous. A similar poll of junior high students, conducted a few months later, showed that when asked what they want to be when they grow up, the majority said they want to be famous...You don’t exactly need a poll to tell you these things, though. We are surrounded by anecdotal evidence of it. Ever see an entire stadium full of people waiting outdoors for three days for a chance to audition for American Idol? It happens about a half dozen times a year and all over the country...."

13 is the new 18?

I got this email today. My son Nathan, 14, has his own email account through MSN. When he originally signed up for it, he had to have parental authorization. Now, according to MSN, not only does he not need my authority to have an email account through them, but I may not "manage permission for this child for Microsoft Online Services." Here's the email in totality...the arrogance is astounding.

"Dear parent or guardian: According to the birth date provided for your child's Microsoft online account, Nathan is now 13 years old. You are therefore no longer able to manage permissions for the Nathan account through Account Services, and your child may create a new account without your permission. United States law requires websites and services to obtain parental permission to collect, use, or share personal information from children under 13. Because this child is now 13, you can no longer manage permission for this child for Microsoft online services."

Please take a look at the new calendar feature (left-hand side).

Soon, I will not be including a monthly calendar in my monthly mailing to you; I'm moving more and more info to this site, so please be checking often.

We're going to be doing a few "different" things over the next month or so, ex: a Fall Party next week in lieu of youth group on Wednesday night (note time change), and also our Sunday night group is going to Martelle TWICE in the coming months (once on November 25th, and again on December 9th).

For an article about passports for those looking into our Mexico trip:

Click here.

Why Mormons do better youth ministry than we do

Original Source
By Greg Stier from Dare2Share Ministries

"Let's face it. Most of us look at the clean cut Mormon missionaries that peddle the streets of our city and knock on the doors of our houses as somewhat out of date. Although they are kind and well spoken young men, when they knock on our doors we either don't answer or tell them we are already Christians who reject Mormonism and bid them good day

We think to ourselves how "behind the times" these young people are forced to be when they are required to do door-to-door evangelism for their religion. We reflect on how grateful we are that we have the truth once and for all delivered to the saints. We may even think about how much more superior our youth ministry strategies are compared to theirs.

Or are they?

• Mormons expect a lot out of their teenagers. We don't.
• Mormons ordain their young men into the ministry at the age of twelve. We don't.
• Mormons require their teens to attend seminary every day of high school. We don't.
• Mormons ask for two years in the field of every graduating senior. We don't.

Maybe that's why we don't meet a lot of ex-Mormons, while there are hundreds of thousands of former church attendees in the true church of Jesus Christ (of everyday saints) who flee the church after graduating from high school.

Maybe that's why Mormons give more, work harder and are exploding as a religion. In 1985 there were 4.5 million Mormons and now there are over 12 million.

When many of our teens graduate from high school, they grab their books and a beer and go off to the college dorm (A.K.A. "The Party Zone"). When Mormon teens graduate from high school they grab a backpack and a bike pump and go off on a mission.

They know what they believe and why they believe it. They've hammered out their theology on our doorsteps. Their souls and minds have been steeled and sealed into Mormon orthodoxy through their fanatical commitment to the accomplishment of their version of the Great Commission.

Meanwhile we compress most of our mission work into one week in Mexico once every year or two. And even that is comprised mostly of building houses, not necessarily advancing the kingdom of God and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There's a great line in the movie Braveheart where Robert the Bruce is commenting on William Wallace to his father. He says, "He believes. I want to believe like he believes."

When I look at the Mormons I think to myself, "They believe. I want to believe like they believe." Now don't get me wrong. I don't want to believe what they believe. Mormon theology is far from what the Bible says about Jesus, God, sin and salvation. It is, by no means, a truly Christian religion.

Having said that, Mormonism pushes their kids harder and takes them deeper and farther than even the most ardent of evangelical youth ministries would ever dare.

Can you imagine a youth group that challenged every teen in the youth ministry to meet at 6am every day of the school year for a class on Christianity? That's exactly what Mormons do with their high schoolers and their belief system! We get excited if once a year at 7:15am, while Mormon teens are coming back from their daily seminary lesson on Mormonism, our teens gather around a pole and pray.

I'm not saying that we copy the Mormons specific strategy. I can't foresee our teenagers racing Mormons to the door in a battle of the bicycles. Nor do I believe the answer lies in a daily early morning class. We don't need to copy their strategy. We do, however, need to adopt their philosophy.

We need to push our teens. We need to turn them into active activists. We need to build consistent opportunities for service, outreach and training. We need to equip them to share their faith and then go with them, leading the way. After all, we are youth leaders.

Somebody may accuse me of looking at this as some sort of competition. It is. We are in a competition with Satan for the souls of our young people. And we are getting our rears kicked.

My problem is not with Mormons. It's with us. Let's learn from the Mormons and turn our kids into missionaries. Armed with the power of the true gospel (not some aberrant belief system) our teens could mount a comeback and help us win this thing.

Game on."

How much are you personally demanding from your children when it comes to their faith?