Youth...

Getting Kids Involved at Church

By Jim Burns
HomeWord

CBN.com – John and Donna are cousins. Their families have similar involvement at church. Both were active in their high school, received good grades, had lots of friends, made commitments to Christ at the same age, and attended the same church.

Today, John is an active leader in the Church. Donna dropped out after high school. What happened? Of course there are theological reasons, but I'll let the theologians work through those explanations. My answer is less complicated, but just as important: Involvement. John was involved with his ministry; Donna was a spectator.

Experiencing vs. Spectating

Many youth group leaders believe they have to entertain their group to have a successful program. Wrong! Young people must experience the work of Christ if they are to grow in their faith. For example, we can never just talk about missions and expect our young people to understand. Kids need to experience mission first hand; and it doesn't have to be a short-term trip to a foreign country. Organize local outreaches with your teens. It could be as simple as painting a widow's house, working at a rescue mission, or visiting a rest home.

Servanthood vs. Looking Out for No. 1

Our society is concerned with: "What's in it for me?" On the other hand, Christ calls His people to serve. We must instill a sense of servanthood in our young people. The ones who find the joy of serving stay committed to their childhood faith.

Community vs. Individualism

We need to teach and practice a sense of community in our youth groups. Young people will stay in the church because they are drawn into the community by faith. They were socialized into a community that affects their actions, beliefs, attitudes and values, even their dating habits.

How can you develop a stronger sense of involvement in your youth? You must see yourself as a Discipler, Enabler, and Model.

DISCIPLER

If you see your role as that of a teacher, a dispenser of knowledge, you don't have high enough goals. To nurture youth involvement, use the method Paul suggested to Timothy: "and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be, able to teach others also" (II Timothy 2:2). Discipleship is a character-building relationship that challenges people to take what they have been given by our Lord and give it to others.

ENABLER

Youth workers who desire to see long-lasting results must see themselves as enablers. One of the most difficult areas of ministry for many youth workers is the area of delegation. The I-will-do-it-all mentality might be great for the smoothness of the program, but it can be horrible for growth in the lives of your kids. Always look for ways to train and equip your young people.

When it comes to delegating, Dave Stone's "Four Phases of Ease" is really helpful:

[1] I it and you watch.
[2] I do it and you do it.
[3] You do it and I watch/assist.
[4] You do it and I'll do something else.

As you enable your young people to do the actual work of the ministry, the results will be evident in their enthusiasm for their faith.

MODEL

Kids find heroes among musicians, film stars, and pro athletes whose lifestyles are contrary to Scripture. When it comes to the faith, kids also imitate their leaders. That's why ministry that emphasizes relationships is so important. The best way to model the faith is through a consistently open and honest lifestyle. There is possibly nothing more fulfilling than watching your young people respond to Christ's call, become involved, and continue to mature as Christians. The time and energy you invest in your young people is well worth it.

Ideas for Involvement

• Peer Ministry: This can be a wonderful way for your youth group to minister to the entire church and other churches as well.
• Tutoring: Set up a time where kids can come to church for tutoring help from others in the group. Open up this service to the community.
• Teaching and sharing: Train your young people to teach the lesson or share their faith in the youth group. The credibility factor with their peers will produce solid ministry.
• Photograph and media: Appoint a youth group photographer. Sometimes this is the perfect ministry for a handicapped person or one of the unpopular kids.
• Caravan Ministry: Each year, hundreds of youth groups put on ministry-oriented programs while traveling from church to church.
• Social Service: Allow your kids the privilege of serving some of the older saints in your church and community. Visit lonely patients in the hospital. Help at a children's hospital.
• Hunger: Sponsor a child from one of the many outstanding relief agencies. You can always help out at the local soup kitchen or Salvation Army.
• Prison: Most prison ministries have a letter-writing program for inmates. Just be sure that an adult mentors a teen through this process.
• Work Camps: This is one of the most outstanding ways to let kids serve God. As young people work hard, whether it be painting, building or cleaning, they see the results of their ministry.
• Family Night: Sponsor a family night at your church where the youth group designs the program.
• Parents Update: Write a newsletter to the parents perhaps once every quarter sharing information about the youth group.
• Growth Booklet: Your youth group can sponsor a time where the family can participate in a Christian education experience together.
• Intergenerational Sunday School: Periodically, develop a Sunday morning program that includes all generations and let your youth group take an active lead in planning and preparing the presentation.
• Family Camp Out: Let the youth group plan a special camp out and be responsible for the program.
• Teaching Sunday School: On occasion, give all the Sunday School teachers the day off and let the youth group put on a program for the kids or teach the Sunday School lessons.
• Big Brother/Big Sister: This is an effective ministry your youth can have with some of the young generation in your church.
• Day Camp: Let the youth group run a day camp for the younger kids this summer.
• Youth in Leadership Positions: Have some of your leaders sit in on some of the decision-making committees in your church.
• Clean-Up Day: Sponsor a special day where the youth group takes on a special project at the church.

For more stories like this one, sign up to receive our Family Email Update from CBN.com in your email every Tuesday.

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Printed by permission of HomeWord. For additional information on HomeWord, visit www.homeword.com or call 800-397-9725.

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The High Call of Parenting

By Jim Burns
HomeWord

CBN.com – I believe that if you have children, then regardless of your own career or ministry aspirations and activities, one of God’s primary callings on your life is that of godly parenting! This is a tremendously important and high calling!

Parents are called not only to nurture their children to become independent and functioning adults, but to impart to them a spiritual legacy. One of my greatest fears is that parents aren’t investing the time and energy it takes to leave a spiritual legacy for their children. For better or for worse – you, as a parent – are your child’s role model for faith! The average parent simply does not take a proactive role in building up the spiritual lives of their children. We may spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on important issues, such as vacations, business plans, and home improvement; but when it comes to spiritual values, we too often allow circumstances and chance to affect how we manage our family life and especially that of our calling as parents.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” (Psalms 127:1)

That’s one of the greatest pieces of advice from the Psalms of the Old Testament. It is very clear in the Bible (see Deuteronomy 6:6-7) that the primary role of a parent is to train children who will not only be faithful to their relationships with God, but who also will develop their own vital vibrant faith.

I’m truly thankful for the wonderful influence that youth ministries have – impacting and motivating the spiritual lives of our kids. Yet, far too many parents expect the church to instill the spiritual values their children need. Most parents have a difficult time proactively helping their children grow spiritually because they themselves didn’t have adequate role models growing up.

The spirituality of your kids is very dependent on the examples they see you setting at home. To fulfill your high calling as a parent, you must set the pace! If you desire your children to have vibrant spiritual lives, then they need to see an authentic faith lived out in your life. No one expects perfection, but a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude is not likely to produce a vital Christian lifestyle in your teenager’s life either. Kids have a highly tuned “hypocrisy” detector – so it is much better to live out an authentic faith in front of your kids – and how you follow Christ despite your struggles and failures along the way – in order to display the example of Christianity lived out in the real world.

Today, there is a fresh wind inspiring parents to take an active, intentional role in nurturing the faith of their children. Be a part of what God’s Spirit is doing in this area! Fulfill your calling! Don’t miss out on perhaps the greatest legacy you can pass on to your kids: a life that demonstrates a passionate pursuit of God and love for Him. Be reminded, encouraged and challenged: This process starts with you!

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Getting the Word Out!

The Bible is the most printed, most read book in history. Yet printing is only one step in placing God’s Word into people’s hands. The labor of translation is also strategic.

Here are some highlights of how the good news has spread into other languages since the Reformation:

1530s—William Tyndale’s English translation prepared the way for other English versions of the Bible, including the King James Version (KJV).

1534—Martin Luther finished translating the entire Bible into German.

1629—The book of Matthew was translated into the Southeast Asian language Malay.

1663—John Elliot translated the Bible into the Natick Algonquin language of North America.

1793-1834—William Carey and his associates translated the Scriptures into over 40 Asian languages.

1809 & 1816—The International Bible Society (IBS) and American Bible Society (ABS) were founded in New York City. ABS provided the first pocket Bibles for Civil War soldiers and supplied Bibles to hotels and Pony Express riders.

1823—Robert Morrison translated the entire Bible into Chinese.

1887—John Ross translated the first Korean New Testament.

2006—United Bible Societies distribute 393 million Scriptures in one year.

Today—Much translation work is left to be done. According to Wycliffe Bible Translators, of the nearly 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, more than 2,200 languages lack access to even one verse of Scripture. Only 429 language communities have access to the entire Bible in their native language.

Excerpted from an article at: www.answeringenesis.org

Source: Wycliffe Bible Translators, American Bible Society, International Bible Society, and United Bible Society.

Here we Stand; we can do no Other...

Ken Ham www.answersingenesis.org

This month, we released an eye-opening new book (see the cover at right) that we ask you to symbolically nail on the door of churches, Christian colleges, and seminaries across America.

From your history classes, you may recall that in 1517, a young monk, Martin Luther, boldly nailed 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. He was calling the church back to the authority of the Bible and away from the opinions and traditions of fallible man.

Four years later, Luther stood before the emperor, princes, and others in the Bishop’s Palace in Worms, Germany, where he was told to recant his theses and books. The next day, after a long night of prayer and counsel, Luther famously replied that he would not recant unless it could be shown from the Scriptures that he was in error. He is then reported to have said:

Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen.

This month marks a milestone in the Answers in Genesis ministry. In the book Already Gone, you will learn about a major research study that we believe could help lead to a revolution—another reformation, if you will—for a desperately needed transformation of the church in America.

For years, we have been challenging the church to stand without compromise on the authority of God’s Word, beginning in Genesis. We have insisted that Christians should be like the Bereans in Acts 17:11: “They received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”

Similarly, we have been encouraging Christians to be like Martin Luther, who stood before the authorities of his day and insisted that we judge our beliefs against the absolute authority of the Word of God—regardless of what the majority might say (e.g., scientists of today who hold to evolution and millions of years).

In this newsletter and in my lectures over the years, I have insisted that Christians who compromise by accepting the idea of an earth supposedly millions of years old (or who are indifferent to whether or not that is even a problem) have greatly contributed to the decline of the church and its influence. Most churches lack apologetics teaching for their young people (and their adults, for that matter). As a result, a very significant number of young people are leaving the church—and thus the decline of the influence of Christianity in this nation continues.

To help understand why millions of young adults have already left the church of their youth, a generous supporter of Answers in Genesis offered to fund a major research effort through America’s Research Group. (ARG is headed by the highly respected secular market researcher Britt Beemer, a frequent guest on national TV news programs.)

Britt’s company composed survey questions to find out why so many young adults are being lost from the church . . . plus why Christians are not having the influence on the culture that they once had (and thus why we are ultimately losing the “culture war” in America).

The results will shock you—and shock the church as a whole.

For example, our national survey discovered that children who grew up in evangelical homes are being “lost” from the church as early as elementary school, not primarily in college (as most might expect). Furthermore—in one of the biggest and most distressing surprises of the research—something you might call the “Sunday school syndrome” is contributing to the epidemic!

Already Gone is an alarming wake-up call for the church, because it reports on Britt Beemer’s research and shows how church programs and approaches to Christian education are failing—and thus millions of our young people are leaving the church. While the research statistics reveal the root issues of a huge problem, Already Gone shows how to fight back and reclaim our families, our churches, and our society for biblical truths.

I urge you to read the book and absorb its findings, and please encourage many others to do so as well. (By the way, it is a “quick read.”) And then I plead with you not to stop there. I believe that once you understand what the researchers have uncovered, you will be motivated to symbolically nail Already Gone on the doors of churches and Christian organizations. We need many “Luthers”—many Answers in Genesis supporters—nailing this book on church doors throughout America.

As we finished writing this book, I knew that it could bring a tidal wave of disbelief and frustration from those who don’t want to accept its findings. But I couldn’t help but exclaim from the bottom of my heart:

Here we stand; we can do no other.

May God help us reach the church with a crucial message of reformation—and may God raise up generations in the church who will stand on His Word and be the salt and light that this culture so desperately needs.

Please pray with me, that through resources like Already Gone, we’ll see a new reformation in the American church.

Spiritual Warfare
Author: Jerry Rankin

Christians already have victory over the world through Jesus, but Satan picks a fight with believers nonetheless, tempting them with the influences of the world in an effort to steal God’s glory. Indeed, the battle rages on, but the nature of the enemy is baldly exposed in Spiritual Warfare, helping readers better understand feelings of resentment, anger, doubt, pride, and adversity for what they really are: fiery darts of deception.

Written by International Mission Board president Jerry Rankin, who has witnessed spiritual warfare at work around the world, the book in turn becomes an inspiring guide to the Spirit-filled life, illuminating spiritual disciplines that equip us for victory including prayer, Bible study, fasting, Sabbath observance, active church membership, and praising God in all things.

Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Pub. Date: March 2009
Type: Hardback
ISBN 10: 0805448802
ISBN 13: 9780805448801
Product #: 005178766
Weight: 1.21 lbs
Trim Size: 6.28 X 9.28 X 0.99
Binding: Hardcover
Price: $19.99