Are the students in your youth group prepared to defend their faith? Or even back up one step, can they even understand why they believe themselves? I want to tell you about a project I was able to be a part of that could make a big difference for your students. It is the apologetic study bible for students and here is a video that talks a little about it. Sean McDowell is the editor and did an outstanding job and I contributed five articles to it (Feb 2010). Knowing what we believe is a good start…but we must go beyond that to the why.
Why Community?
“The most important reason to pursue deep community is not for the physical or emotional benefits it brings, great as those may be. Community is the place God made us for. Community is the place where God meets us.”–John Ortberg
Read John 17.
Do you listen?
He who scorns instruction will pay for it, but he who respects a command is rewarded.–Proverbs 13:13
We all need good input along the way. How quickly we seek it and heed it has a lot to do with our success. God’s word is our primary source of input but don’t neglect bringing wise friends and mentors in as well.
Why Bother With Discipleship?
I came across this challenging article and wanted to pass it along. Why spend time following Jesus if Christianity is all about someday and not today? Dallas Willard offers some helpful thoughts…
“If we are Christians simply by believing that Jesus died for our sins, then that is all it takes to have sins forgiven and go to heaven when we die. Why, then, do some people keep insisting that something more than this is desirable? Lordship, discipleship, spiritual formation, and the like?
What more could one want than to be sure of their eternal destiny and enjoy life among others who profess the same faith as they do. Of course everyone wants to be a good person. But that does not require that you actually do what Jesus himself said and did. Haven’t you heard? “Christians aren’t perfect. Just forgiven.”
Now those who honestly find themselves concerned about such matters might…” (More)
Being like Jesus…
Quite a thought…but that is the goal of the Christian life (i.e., becoming more like Jesus cf. Rom.8:29). Dallas Willard offers us some sage advice, “We cannot behave ‘on the spot’ as Jesus did and taught if in the rest of our time we live as everybody else does.” But that leads us to the needed, but uncomfortable question of how am I living?