4am Thoughts

Well its the morning after Winter Blast and my mind will not let me sleep through the night. So much going through my head right now, that I don't even know if I can organize any thoughts, but I feel like I need to write some things down.

Thought #1: Why do we spend our time, energy, effort, and dollars on events such as Winter Blast? It's the Gospel! Plain and simple, we want to make Jesus known in the deepest places of a teenager's soul! I think of the fact that a small county such as Lawrence County has many schools with real people living, breathing, and walking through the hallways. Lets start up north...
  • Wilmington High School with probably 130 students a class making around 780 students in 7th-12th grade
  • Neshannock High School with around 100 students per class making around 600 students in 7th-12th grade
  • New Castle High School with about 180 students per class making around 1080 students in 7th-12th grade
  • Union High School with about 80 students per class making around 480 students in 7th-12th grade
  • Lawrence County Vo-Tech with about 80 students per class making around 480 students in 7th-12th grade
  • Laurel High School with about 110 students per class making around 660 students in 7th-12th grade
  • Mohawk High School with about 120 students per class making around 720 students in 7th-12th grade
  • Shenango High School with about 100 students per class making around 600 students in 7th-12th grade
  • Elwood City High School with about 130 students per class making around 780 students in 7th-12th grade
  • Lincoln Park which draws about 100 students or so from Lawrence County.
  • Just a guess, but I am going to say that there are about 200 more students that are either home-schooled or go to a private school in Lawrence County.
These are just educated guesses on my part, but I think I can make my point here... That adds up to around 6,500 7th-12th grade students. With approximately 320 students there last night for Winter Blast we only reached about 5% of students with the Gospel, and most of those were kids who already go to church. Do not get me wrong, I am grateful for what was accomplished at Winter Blast, but everything in me says... what about the other 95%! What can we do to reach them more effectively?

Thought #2: Reaching the masses must come by multiplication not addition! By its very nature, events are what I would call addition events. We try to gather the masses and add to the number of those who might know the King! This can only go so far. Multiplication is when other students who have experienced the love and transforming power of Jesus, become His ambassadors and begin to multiply themselves! I believe that the answer to reaching the 95% is through our teenagers in the church, which puts the burden on primarily parents and then church leadership to raise up teenagers who know Jesus and are motivated to "go and make disciples"! The power that parents and youth pastors/leaders have is nurturing a contagious faith in our teenagers who are in the schools everyday... talking with their friends at the lunch table, texting, hanging out after school, or on sporting teams together.

Thought #3: How do we raise up a generation of young people who are consumed with the Gospel? Two things come to my mind...
  1. This kind of faith needs to be modeled before them by their main "influencers" in life. This is the biggest reason that God is shifting my platform for ministry. I have been in youth ministry over 15 years and the thing that has become very clear is that a teenagers #1 "influencers" are parents! Unfortunately we don't have a radical Christ-centered faith being modeled to students by most parents within the walls of our churches. Parents are consumed with their busy schedules which often include their kids because they want them to grow up and be healthy. My problem is with the definition of "healthy". Actions speak louder than words. My observation of "healthy" has been to get good grades, play sports (learning character qualities), eat well, and stay away from drugs and alcohol. To someone who does not know Jesus, that might be just fine, but for those who know the truth of the Gospel, can you be satisfied with this? They are good things, but they are not the most important things! It is more important than anything for our children to grow up with a Christ-centered faith that is lived out by truth which leads us to Love God and to Love People! THIS FAITH HAS TO BE MODELED BY US AS PARENTS! I will say that churches have failed to help parents in this arena. We have concentrated our strategies to focus on kids and teenagers at the detriment of adults. We have developed big programs for children and teenagers that take an enormous amount of volunteer staff to run. These programs are often run by parents who are over taxed and starving spiritually because they have not been in a context of growth. Please do not misunderstand me, I think Children and Student Ministries are important, but not at the detriment of creating spiritually healthy adults! We have to care about these people more than we care about our programs! It's a trickle down strategy!
  2. They need to know the Word of God and allow it to transform them... living from the inside out! Truth transforms... period! Jesus' prayer is that his disciples would be sanctified by the truth, and then He goes on to say that God's Word is truth. The process of sanctification is setting apart an individual to God from the inside out. It's not about behavior modification, but about heart and mind transformation.
Well these are my thoughts for now! Hope it all made sense being that these were my 4am ramblings!

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