Category Archives: Red Zone (pursuing the lost)

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The Power of Friendship: Why Adolescence is All About Friendship?

Youth are significantly influenced by their friends. This is why it’s important to have youth leaders who can model what it means to be a good friend.

good friendship

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. -John 15:3

Friendship is important in every stage of development. But during adolescence friendship becomes central to everything. This is a critical stage of development because teenagers are building a foundation for having good friendships the rest of their lives.

One of the most powerful benefits of healthy youth ministry is that we can help kids understand God’s design for relationships. Jesus talked alot about friendship, and we know that he nurtured model friendships in his disciples. A teenager’s intense preoccupation with friendship is a good thing. It is an opportunity for the adults in their lives to imprint in them a road map for a lifetime of good friendships. Here’s how…

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30 Things Teenagers Want in a Relationship

Teens think a lot about what they want in a relationship. This is an opportunity for youthworkers to help them align w/ God’s design for sex & relationships

camp lakeTeenagers are intensely relational. They are figuring out who they are and what it means to be a friend. They are also thinking about what they desire in a relationship. This is a very normal stage of development. It is also an incredible opportunity for youth workers to help teenagers figure out how to align their lives with God’s design for sex and relationships.

A survey at a high school outreach camp asked a few hundred kids this question:

What is one thing that you want from a relationship?

Here are their answers:

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Good News: You are Loved. Jesus & the Gospel Proves It.

fly fishing with Jesus

The good news of Jesus Christ is that you are loved.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” –Romans 5:8

Jesus loves us not because we are these incredibly loveable fur balls who deserve his love. He loves us in a much deeper profound way than that. Jesus knows we are made from dust. He knows that we can’t possibly fathom how great and worthy he is of our awe and worship. He understands that we were all born of the seed of Adam which means in our own strength we have no chance of ever being completely pure. He knows how broken and frail we are even though we put on all sorts of prideful masks and crutches of victimization. And in the midst of all of that, when he was on the cross, paving a path for us sinners to cross over from death to life, he cried out to the Father in our defense:

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. –Luke 23:34

WE NEED DAILY REMINDERS WE ARE LOVED

Most of us need daily reminders that we are loved so much. Without Gospel reminders we become jaded, cowardly, judgmental, and self-protective. And when we sway from feeling loved our ability to reflect the Light of Jesus’ love to others dims and dims and dims…

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Never Stop Sowing | Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God – the Meaning of Mark 4:1-9

Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.’ – Revelation 14:6-7

Never Stop Sowing

As I get to know student ministry leaders in dozens of countries around the world, one of the most important topics we constantly keep at the forefront is the Gospel of Jesus and how we can communicate it effectively to young people. As the passage from Revelation above excites our imagination about the activity of God in the spiritual realm to spread the yeast of his Good News to every tribe, tongue, and culture, we need to keep reminding ourselves that evangelism is absolutely central to the mission of the church. As we explore the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4:1-9 in this post, I want to encourage you that no matter how hard you find it is to share the Gospel, or how discouraged you get, never give up on introducing people to Jesus. The central message of this parable is exactly that: NEVER NEVER NEVER STOP SOWING.

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Mormon Evangelism: Sharing Christ with Mormons

Foreign Policy reported on some of the current statistics of Mormonism. In the article, The Mormon Missionary: The Things They Carried, they reported there are:

83,000 full-time missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who serve in 405 missions around the world. The number of full-time missionaries has risen by some 40 percent since 2012, when the church lowered the minimum age for serving from 19 to 18 for men and from 21 to 19 for women. But conversions haven’t kept pace: The church recorded just 3.4 baptisms per missionary in 2013, compared with 4.6 in 2012.

In my travels I can attest to seeing more MormMormon Evangelismon missionaries all over the globe. I remember being in Samoa and seeing Mormon church after Mormon church as I drove throughout the island. Most Mormons introduce themselves as “Christians” and talk about their goal as “introducing people to Jesus Christ.” The problem is that, although their culture has many attractive attributes that display characteristics of Jesus Christ, their beliefs do not align with the teachings of the Bible. This can be very hard to know how to navigate in a conversation with a Mormon.

Probably the best book I’ve read on how to share the Gospel with Mormons is, I Love Mormons by David Rowe. Dr. Rowe has been a missionary to Mormons for a long time and offers keen insight. For Rowe, the proper starting point to Mormon evangelism is to approach it just as you would approach any other “culture”.  The wrong approach is to start with the perspective that  Mormonism is a “cult.” Although their beliefs do not align with Christianity, it is not effective to start out accusing them of being part of a cult. I highly recommend Rowe’s book. Some say that Mormonism will soon be, if not already, considered a “World Religion.” Followers of Jesus have a great opportunity in evangelism Mormons, and we need to prayerfully consider the urgency of missions to Mormons, as they are one of the more active “evangelists” of any other religion in the world.

 

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Achan ’s Sin – the Human Story (Joshua 7-8)

Empty tomb photo

Joshua 7 is one of those chapters that is a bit perplexing until you read it through the lens of the Gospel.

The only way to properly read this story is to put ourselves into it. If we are honest, we can all relate with Achan. What he did. And the consequences he suffered.

We have to be careful to not distance ourselves too much from Achan. The temptations that seized Achan are common temptations to ALL of us. The pile of stones that were stacked on Achan should be piled on each of us too.

If we don’t understand the depth of our sin, then we’ll never understand grace either. The good news is that the story of Achan’s tomb of stones is overshadowed by the epic story of the Empty tomb of Jesus.

To hear my sermon on “Achan’s Sin, the Human Story”, click here…