“The Fold”
9 11 2009
God has graciously given Faith Baptist Church a wonderful group of teens. More importantly God has given our church a wonderful group of parents who are raising teens. Last night the parents of our teens shared their burdens, and prayer requests for their teens in a meeting with Pastor Kaighen and myself.
It was my privilege to hear these requests and to then share a simple philosophical thought about our youth group. Here is what I shared.
Our youth group is part of our whole church. It is not a small church within our church. God has equipped each of His believers with gifts and abilities that He desires to see used in our church. Some of those gifts and talents are evident now in the lives of the teens and the challenge we face is the challenge of getting them plugged in that they may use those gifts. We can look at our youth group as a “fold” within the great flock of the church. God has graciously called Pastor Kaighen to assist in shepherding this “fold” and to help these teens grow, and use their gifts and abilities within our local church.
When we think of the fold think of the following things in the form of an acrostic:
F – Focused on Future Transitions. We are not teaching or doing activities that merely focus on the here and now, but also on where they are going. Therefore we are training and teaching with their future decisions in mind.
O – Optional. Youth group is one of the tools that come with the toolbox of the local church. I hope that each family with teens would consider the youth group a valuable tool that assist them. We do not gauge a persons faithfulness or level of spirituality by how faithful they are to youth activities. I do hope they will be used, but understand the busy lives of families and want the youth group to simply be an optional tool that many will choose to use.
L – Lead by example and word. The “fold” of the youth group is not merely a platform where teens hear teaching. It is also a platform where they see Godly examples to follow. My hope is to see our youth group facilitate ways in which are teens get to interact and watch Godly adults live joyful Christian lives.
D – Dependent on the whole Church. The youth group is currently led by Pastor Kaighen but the great value of the youth group is when an entire church sees the benefit of the youth group and gets excited about supporting what is happening there. Some have said it takes a village to raise a child, but I say it takes a whole church to properly support a youth group.
Praising the Lord for our teens, their parents, and our youth pastor!
