We have just finished a study we have been involved in since the end of school called “Faith in the Jungle”. How do we make sure our faith survives in the environments we are in? We will never answer this question if we are not living with spiritual eyes. How do we see our faith? How do we see the environments we are in? We will never take the time to see the tools God has given us in our faith as resources if we do not believe these two things.
Faith is important to us & worth protecting.
The environment we are in can harmful to our faith.
What do you miss when you look at your environment? If survival is on your mind, you probably are looking for all the things you can’t see. If survival of your faith is on your mind, you have to start seeing the unseen. What is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal.
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
What if I told you there was a spider on the loose in your room. Or a snake. Would that change how you behaved? Would it change how cautious you are? If you saw a roaring lion, of course we would be cautious. But since we don’t see him working through our culture, our music, our friends even, we let our guard down and our faith is devoured.
If faith is not important to us, we will not take any measures to protect it. There will be no struggle within us between the flesh and the spirit if the flesh is the only one we are listening to. But if we believe these things, then we will use the tools that God has given us to protect our faith in the environment we live in. Jesus is at the core of our faith and faith is at the core of our identity. It is a believe based on action.
Faith is not lived in a bubble, but in a real environment.
Once we have added Jesus to our life, why do we let so many things separate us from Him?
The actions that move us away from sin and closer to God, because our belief that sin destroys our relationship with God.
1 John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
The actions to choose our environments, to play defense because we want to protect our relationship with God. We spent many weeks looking at each tool and direction God provides to us in the jungle.
We are not left defenseless. Our faith has a point. What is the outcome of your faith? Why do we fight to protect it? Use all the tools God has given you to protect it. We need a game plan.
1 Peter 1:3-9 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith,the salvation of your souls.
Deep into 2020, we had one teen class that was unlike the rest. It was a rough year. I had been teaching on zoom, and through YouTube for months. At best, we had class 6ft apart with masks and I wasn’t sure if anything had gotten through to them in a while. I was worried that they had lost the desire to remain close to God. I didn’t know how their faith was really doing. I gave them all a post-it note and read them a made up scenario of a teen in the church. I simply wanted them to listen and at the end write “yes or no” if that described them or not. Here is the scenario I read to them.
Micheal grew up in the church and was baptized at the age of 9 years old. He had always heard that baptism was the right thing to do if he wanted to be saved. But when his uncle studied the Bible with him about baptism, he never mentioned evangelism. He heard that word from time to time in a sermon or in class but he didn’t really know it was referring to something he was expected to do. As the years went by, he grew up but never really grew much in his faith. He was always at church but the Bible always sounded so confusing and complicated. He never really felt close to God. He didn’t want to tell anyone, especially those in the church because he didn’t want to be judged. So he did what he did in school when he didn’t understand something or wasn’t interested; he pretended. If someone asked if he was ok, or if it made sense he always said, “fine” and “yes”. He sat in the back and tried to blend in, he read if called on, bowed his head when it was time to pray but he didn’t really feel any of this in his heart. He knew in his head that he was supposed to go to church. He did believe that there was a God and he wanted to go to heaven, but was mainly at church because some of his friends were there. The youth group did fun things and went on exciting trips some times and he didn’t mind those because he got to spend time with his friends. Micheal had other friends though too at school. Most of his other friends didn’t go to church and would probably make fun of him if they knew he did. He did have some friends at school who went to church but were mostly there because their parents made them go like him. Micheal fit in where he was, doing whatever those around him where doing. Faith felt foreign.
Their answers
A number of teens there that night said they either felt like this or somewhat like this person. Teens today live in a real world and virtual world they are trying to fit in with and manage. Faith is a part of their life but it is often so intangible and hard to see when everything else is in full color around them. How do we help them follow the right path? How do we help them become more committed to Jesus than they are to their sport teams? How do we help them value a relationship with God more than any other relationship they have? How do we help their faith become real and not something they choose to fake? These are all questions I wrestle with and we all should as we encourage them to grow in their faith. But they are also questions we need to ask ourselves as well.
We only get to do this once. As a Youth Minister, I have spent over 15 years begging parents to bring their teens to things, Bible classes and retreats & devos, things they miss to instead be at other places that are not in the presence of God. When we look at how teens view the church and the Bible, why are we not making every effort and moving everything we can out of the way to be at anything that can build faith among a community of people trying to do the same? Do we put as much effort and value on building relationships inside the church as we do building them in communities outside the church? If our time with our teens is not intentional, we should not be surprised when they walk away from the church because they have no real connection to it, the people in it, and no relationship with Jesus who joins it all together.
These sticky notes hang in my office and always will. But they will always worry me. I do not know which teens wrote “yes or no”. We are all really good at pretending and saying the right things to the right people, showing up just enough to appear interested. But God wants fully committed followers not causal fans. The cycles I have watched in the lives of teens, I have seen happen over and over again. And I am convinced that the teens who develop a faith that is real and lasts have parents who have not made excuses but have made a way to be involved in the church, and model faith with their teens. If faith isn’t real for you, if it’s not a priority for you, it never will be for them. They will come when you make them, until they don’t have too. Would they still practice faith if was solely up to them? Is their faith real?
I want more than anything for my kids and yours to enter heaven. I want my kids and yours to know Jesus and learn what it means to follow him. I don’t know about you, but nothing else even compares to that investment. This effort should eclipse all others. This is the partnership we share together.
“For to this end we toil and strive, because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” 1 Timothy 4:10
In focus. Rightly seeing God & How he sees us. Vision matters.
As we look at each person this year, we are going to ask two questions:
How did they see God?
How does God see us?
In this post we are going to look at someone who only appears in scripture once. The Samaritan women at the well in John 4. John chapter 4 is one of my favorite chapters in scripture. There are so many deep profound truths given to us from Jesus about spiritual food, what fills us up, examples on what following God and not man looks like, how to love people the world does not. Jesus refocuses our vision to see things like God sees things. Not just things, but people, and worship. I hope tonight your vision is changed on some things.
John 4:3-4 “He left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he HAD to pass through Samaria.”
The truth is Jesus did not have to do anything. He wanted to go through Samaria. But in many ways, to help us and the Jews of that time, he did have to go through Samaria. For this to make sense, you have to understand that Jews did not talk to Samaritans. They literally avoided them. They were half Jewish people. If you were Jewish and you were going to travel north you would cross the Jordan river, go north past Samaria, and then cross again to get back over. You did not go through Samaria. But Jesus had too. His attitude should be ours. We may avoid places, or people who live in certain places because it is not comfortable for us but Jesus does the opposite. He brings his disciples with him. They leave him there by the well and go into the city to buy food.
John 4:5 So He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Since Jacob’s well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
Many things happen in scripture near a well. Last time we talked about Moses sitting down near a well after leaving Egypt and wondering how God saw him and what he was worth. The woman he is about to meet at this well is probably wondering the same thing. What is she worth to God? How does God see her? We are going to find out how she sees God.
It says it is the sixth hour. That is about noon. Jesus is tired. This is a long hard trip. But I want you see how unusual this situation is. In order to understand the hatred between Jews and Samaritans and how unprecedented this encounter is, we need to go back for a minute to 722 BC or 2 Kings 17:3-6, to the destruction of Samaria by the Assyrians. Many Israelites were moved out of the area, but the ones who stayed eventually married these foreigners and their descendants “lost their Israelite identity.” They also brought with them “their own concept of worship. Although they eventually adopted the God of Israel, their worship was never a pure worship.” (Truth for Today Commentary, John 1-12, Lipe, pg 173) Eventually the Jews returned from Exile and began rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. The Samaritans offer to help rebuild but the Jews reject their help. (Ezra 4) So the Samaritans build a temple on Mt Gerizim, the mountain that Jesus is sitting near at the well. But that temple was destroyed by a Jewish general around 128 BC. But they kept worshiping on this mountain even after their temple was destroyed. This is the history they are sitting in to have this conversation. Jesus has come to bury thousands of years of hatred between Jews and Samaritans and show them regardless of how they see each other, God sees them very differently.
Maybe there are people you have had a hard history with and you avoid them or think it can never be repaired. But if this encounter Jesus has, on purpose, shows us anything it is that God desires us to be reconciled with each other. He wants peace. He died to create peace on the cross. He wants us to go out of our way like he did to show people how much we care. He needs us to see people with the same worth that he sees us.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 “You are a Jew,” said the woman. “How can You ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 11“Sir,” the woman replied, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then will You get this living water?
There are so many shocking things happening here. First, Jesus talks to her in public. Jewish men didn’t talk to their own wives in public durning those days. They certainly didn’t talk to Samaritan women. She even points that out. You are a Jew. Second, what he asks of her is unheard of. He asks for a drink. She tells him you don’t have anything to drink out of. That means, Jesus would have to share a cup with a Samaritan. In those days, Jews did not even use the dishes that Samaritans had used. They were unclean. Even if this was a man, this act to the Jews would have made him unclean they though. Here is God, willing to be seen as unclean to show someone he made that they were not.
Jesus talks about the gift of God. When she heard that perhaps she thought they were were not worthy of a gift from God. They shared a belief in God but it was the Jews who were the chosen people. That made a difference in how they saw God. Maybe where she was in her life, having had 5 husbands, she had never seen gifts from God. Maybe some of those husbands had died and she had to married a brother. We don’t know. We do know that even in the Samaritan town she lived in being married 5 times was probably put her at the bottom of their own society. Now she believed she was talking to a prophet; one connected directly to God.
Jesus talks about being this living water and really what he is revealing to her is his true identity. She saw God as something distance. The Samaritans believed that a prophet like Moses was coming, the Taheb, the Restorer but was not yet there. Jesus brings her understand to a new place. He reveals to her that he is the one they are waiting for. Outside of his disciples, he had never revealed that to anyone else. Further, their thirst is able to be more than satisfied. He is also able to tell them everything (vs25) which he does staying there another two days.
When the conversation turns to subject of worship, to her it is all about location.
John 4:19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I see that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21“Believe Me, woman,” Jesus replied, “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
Jesus picks her to make the announcement that when it comes to worship, it is not about location, it is about participation. She saw herself as unworthy of God’s presence. And God says I am coming to you to prove that is wrong. She saw herself unworthy to worship maybe even at all, noting that her fathers worshiped on this mountain. Notice she did not include herself. But Jesus did. A time is coming when YOU will worship. It wasn’t the location that makes worship holy. It is the presence of God himself that does that. When we show up to worship, know that God is already there waiting to be worshiped. God’s presence is spirit and truth. It is how he wants to be worshiped. The true worshipper comes into worship led by the spirit of God and is participated in through the truth. We are not told to worship however we want. God does not accept all worship. He cares how it done. He always has. He knows we will make it about us in some ways. God designed it to be about him. This woman gets to hear that and goes on to believe in him and I imagine worship him from a very different perspective.
What will you do with Jesus’ revelations given here? While we are separated, we may feel like we can’t worship because our place is closed and that is where we worship. But God has never asked for us to set a place, he has asked for us to set our hearts in worship to him. What are you going to do with the knowledge that he is the source of living water? Look to be filled in other places? Jesus is it. He is more than enough. And he wants you to believe that your identity and worth is tied up in his identity and worth. That is something to be devoted to and spend our life in worship towards Him.
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
When we read this key point in the history of Israel we find God teaching parents who are coming out of years of slavery who are now living under the commandments of God, how to be parents. What tips does God give us as parents to train, instruct, and disciple our kids? First, he starts with us as parents. He says if you are going to lead your kids in faith something must be on your heart. In our hearts as parents we need to have a love for “the Lord your God.” He doesn’t just want us to believe He exist but he wants us to love him! God is love. He treats us and responds to us in love. He wants our kids to see us live and act with a love for God. It is how they will learn to love him. Through us. Our actions and conversations with them will answer the question of why do we love God and why should they? It is that important. So much so that he says, do it “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
Secondly, He says, as parents, that we need to have His commandments on our hearts. We can’t something to anyone, including our children, that we don’t know. This one follows the first one. If we love God, we will love His word. And here is the awesome part, the more of His word we study, the more we will love God. And then the more we are able to teach about who God is and why we our children should come to love Him too. Love for the word of God is not just key to passing on faith to our children, it can’t be done without it.
When you love God and love His commandments, sharing it with your kids will be easy and natural. When does that sharing happen? God gives multiple suggestions on the when and how for us as parents. “Talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (vs 7) That covers it all, doesn’t it? Anytime you are awake with your kids is a time to pass on a love for God and His commandments. I ask this of myself, are we as parents, prioritizing our time with our kids to discuss God and His word? What questions do they have? What do they need to understand about God and his word to grow to maturity? Are we taking the time to get them there?
“Bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (vs 8) Beyond the time frame of when we should be teaching our kids, God tells us how. God’s word should be seen, carried with us, and displayed as a visual reminder that is every before us. These specific things mentioned related directly too instructions given to the Jews in the way God wanted them to remember and carry His word but we can definitely see God desire that His word should go with us and seen in our homes and lives. We do this today in a number of ways. We have bracelets with scripture, art work, clothing, stickers, ways to share it on social media, and more. We are certainly living in a time where is it easier than ever to carry scripture and make it a visual part of our lives and our kids’ lives.
So parents, my encouragement to you is to really absorb the words of Deuteronomy 6. Read them over and over again to discover the desire of God to teach your children. Find creative ways to share and discuss the word of God. Scriptures in lunch boxes, texting scripture to your older kids with not only the verse but what does it mean to your faith. There are a number of great Bible apps, to listen to scripture and explore the meaning of scripture. Listen to a chapter of the Bible in the car, pause it and discuss it with your kids. In our house, we have an age range of 12-3yrs old. We have begun to post on a letter board, one verse a week. Every night at dinner, we recite it to help memorize it, but then just ask simple questions about this verse. There are so many ways to bring a love for God and His word in your home and ever before your kids. The point is, that we love God with all we are, so that our kids will as well.
It is that time again. School is here. Commitments have begun ramping up. We start signing up for one thing after another. Football practice. Chess club. The volleyball team. All of these come with demands and rules about what it means to belong to this group and these teams. The coach defines the terms. We take their threats seriously. I can’t miss a practice or I will be out. They use words like “mandatory” and “required”. We go to great links to raise money and fork out unheard amounts of our own money for equipment our kids need. Some choose to start all this around 3rd grade or earlier. The trend to sign our kids up for things is growing. On top of that, what these things require has increased. On top of school, now our kids have several practices a week on top of games. What does any of this have to do with God? What does it have to do with His church?
Like all parents, I went to several open houses lately. As you walk the halls there are tables after tables of groups and organizations that want your children’s time. Cub Scouts, After school sport programs, bike clubs, etc.. And while these things are not sinful to be involved in, what do they do to to our time and our commitment to God? What do we teach our kids about what is important by our involvement? God wants your time. Your children’s time. Your families time. Are you giving it all away to someone else?
I have spent over 15 years now working with teens and their families in the church. I can not count how many times a teen or parent has told me that they can’t come to something the church has planned because they “have” something. But the truth is they choose something. This is a short post with one simple point. What would happen if God was not optional but everything else was? What if we starting treating the world’s options as optional? What if we first asked how much time would that leave for God and His church if I sign up for that? What would happen if we scheduled God & His church first and then fit in all our hobbies? What would happen if we viewed the things the world wants us to sign up for as optional instead of looking at God, his church, and His mission as optional? Does the world see how important God is to us when we skip worship to practice or play something? Or do they understand something different about what we think of God through where we spend our time? God worries about the fences we sit on; trying to claim to please Him while trying to please ourselves. Get off the fence. Come in the house. That kind of commitment would be something the world would see as important to us. That is why we are here; for the world around us to come to God through us.
Yesterday we returned from a Mission Trip to New Mexico. We woke up one day while there and one of our teens was noticeably an inch taller. Every time I come home to my own kids, I feel like that doubled in size. We planted some grass seed outside in the front yard. A few days ago, it was just a mound of dirt, and now grass is up and growing. There is something amazing about growth.
When it comes to growth, we, as parents, want it to slow down. And while we know it is always ongoing, there are times it comes in large burst. It is the same with the growth of faith in the lives of our kids. Faith is action based on belief. Sometimes we carry faith around, live in it, trust God through one normal day after another and it doesn’t produce much noticeable growth in our faith. We still need these days. We still need to be consistent in our devotion to God. It should be easier in these average mundane days absent of major trails. These days add up. They still produce growth. Faith is built one day at time.
But then there are days you look at your faith and there is a noticeable growth in your faith. In my experience with teens these growth spurts happen when they participate in something that pushes them to be a part of something out of the ordinary. Something uncomfortable. Something hard. Something they did not think they could do. Something that requires trusting God more than they ever have. For some, maybe this is leading a prayer or a song, or reading scripture. Maybe it is going to a friend and sharing how God has lead them out of something they struggled with that their friend is now drowning in. It might be confessing something they struggle with to someone they know can help them. Maybe it is putting their faith into words and answering a question in class. For others, it may being willing to go to New Mexico or Honduras to walk into unknown situations where they find themselves serving others in ways they did not think possible through conditions they did not think they could endure. These big steps are crucible moments. Growing our faith is a choice. And if you want to see huge change we have to chose to trust God in big ways. Those big things are scary but when we allow God to take us through them we will be changed. We will have grown. People will notice. And when the next opportunity comes to trust God we will be much more likely to trust His track record.
Parents, this means we have to trust God to let them participate in big things that we know will produce growth. The truth is, our kids have and always will be in God’s hands. We have to constantly seek ways to let their faith be challenged. Lead them through these opportunities with them. Let them see your faith as they growth theirs. This is our main role as parents. They need to know you trust God in big ways so they will learn how. They need to hear you share about the times that grew your faith. If we believe what we say we believe then will seek to live it out in big ways. Our kids need their own deep faith. It defines their identity, solidifies their confidence and purpose, and brings immense worth to their lives. Celebrate their growth. Look for the next time they can grow even deeper. The storms are coming. Faith is the anchor.
May is a time of change. Maybe you have experienced that yourself or alongside someone you are close with. College Graduations. High School Graduations. Kindergarten Graduations. We stop and celebrate change.
As a Youth & Family Minister, the month of May is hard and exciting. Every year, there are Seniors who have reached the end of the road and it is time to find a way to say goodbye to them and watch them go on to another chapter. (I am trying to convince some of them to never grow up.) In the same season, we welcome those who start their journey in this new season. Full circle. The question is what do we do before the circle closes? Are we running from one week to another just trying to survive or are we making sure our kids are prepared and able to withstand all that world throws at them? There is only one way they survive that kind of assault. They must be rooted and grounded in God.
There is nothing more valuable we can do with our time, energy, and resources than help make our young people able and have the desire to work in the kingdom of God. Nothing. What else compares? Families, why do we spend more time making our kids more able to preform in something this world values than we do making them able to be a tool in something God values? How much of your time is spent investing and training your kids in spiritual kingdom work?
If you are raising kids right now, you are not just raising someone able to go to work one day. You are raising a worshipper. You are raising someone purchased by the blood of Christ. You are raising someone who has the choice to one day be a disciple. A follower of Christ. You are raising someone that is eternal. This is a different focus of why we invest. This is a different work, one that we should be excited about.
God wants us to be busy spiritually investing in our kids. In our work we find joy and strength. This is God’s ideal outcome of our actions. God doesn’t give us work to do to keep us busy. He is trying to keep us full. He doesn’t want to control us, He wants to transform us. He knows what service does. He knows what joy overcomes. He knows his strength is unending. He knows the world will notice. This is why we work.
I want to leave you with an idea I have seen a few places. Get two clear jars, fill one with beans, one for each week that your teen has left before they graduate. Each week, transfer one of them to another jar. It will be easy to see how much time you have left. It is a good reminder that change often comes quicker than we want. God wants you to make the most of it. Satan wants to you not think about at all.
I have never considered myself a blogger. But I find myself writing at the top of my to do list every week “encourage parents”. The longer I work with teenagers, I know parents can use all the help that they can get. As a parent of three beautiful little girls myself, I often wonder if I am doing everything I need to do as a parent. Am I missing something? Am I taking the time to teach them everything I am supposed? Am I preparing them for all they will face when they are on their own? What about everything the world will throw at them? I only get to do this once.
I have worked in Youth & Family for over 15 years now and love what I get to do. But one thing I want to do better is the support I give to parents in a more consistent way. As a parent of three growing girls, one quickly approaching the teen years, I know firsthand how hard parenting is. It may be the most exhausting job you can ever take on. I want to be committed to helping parents grow the faith of those teens they are raising. Good news parents, for decades now, teens list parents as the most influential influences in their lives. Parents, look past all the eye rolls, and disrespectful comments murmured under your teens breathe and know that you still have the greatest influence on your teen that almost anyone else will on the planet. What are you doing with your influence?
So blog post #1. A few things about this blog site. I plan on having short blog posts. Singular thoughts. I can guarantee that I will have grammatical errors. I am not an English teacher. I’m sorry. I will do my best. I want to use this venue to point you to resources that may be helpful for you in different ways as you raise your teen. I want you to know that I am here if you need any help with your teen. Do you have a topic you want me to write about or expert opinion you want me to point you to? Let me know and I will do my best. It is my prayer that this effort encourages you as carry out the most valuable job there is; parenting.
Ministering to Parents 