Fear, Patience, and Prayer in Discipling Kids

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Recently, I made a presentation to parents in our youth ministry, entitled, “Why Kids Abandon the Church.” Two years earlier, when I made a similar presentation, called “Grace-Driven to Postmodern Teens,” the class drew five people. Not surprisingly, this terrifying title attracted a packed room of sixty parents.

In the presentation, I explained our strategy, which has been eight years in the making, to maximize the chances that students will stick with Jesus and the church after high school. Terms, such as “theological depth,” “grace-driven,” “devotional training,” and “family discipleship” flew around the room. I routinely dropped names like Kenda Creasy Dean and Christian Jones.

While I qualified the talk with the premise that we have so little control over our children’s spiritual future- only God yields fruit- the presentation did have a “business plan” feel to it. While I stand by our strategy and commend other youth ministries to focus intentionally on fostering life-long disciples of Christ, a conversation afterwards with a young adult in the audience exposed my blind spot.

He said simply, “The thing you are missing is that after they leave home kids have to claim their faith on their own; parents cannot force that to happen.” This young man grew up in a nurturing Christian home and solid church. To my knowledge, he did not consistently seek out church or campus ministry in college. Here as a young adult he is thoughtfully considering the depth in which he may or may not follow Christ. God has brought a woman into his life, and this relationship has stimulated a fresh consideration of faith. His honesty helped me contemplate discipleship of young people with a fresher balance and with the following concepts in mind.

Control

As much as say that God’s total sovereignty and goodness is the only hope for our children, in my flesh I believe that I have control. I think if I deliver the right messages, relate in the best manner, and orchestrate certain experiences, I can effectuate real faith in my students and in my own children. The lurking fear I have, that kids for whom I care so deeply will reject Christ and the church, only exacerbates my desire to cling to my devices.

When I survey the turning points that led to my decision to walk with Christ in college and young adulthood, all of them came places that no person, except God, could control. At the National Young Leaders Conference during my sophomore year of high school, an agnostic from Maine asked me why I was a Christian. I had no answer other than subjective experiences and the beliefs of my parents. This encounter caused me to question the veracity of Christianity. Days later, the Jehovah’s Witnesses (of all people) dropped by our house and gave us an apologetics tract. I only read the section on proofs of the resurrection and fulfillment of prophecy. This tract stimulated a season of further study, which confirmed for me that, in fact, Jesus Christ is the Risen Lord.

My parents and church had built solid foundations, but only in the moments ordained by the Holy Spirit in the mundane circumstances of life did I convert from a cultural Christian to a committed follower of Jesus. It all occurred apart from the control or strategy of any person but God.

Patience

Like most Christian parents and youth pastors, I have a strong desire to see my kids walk with Jesus in college. Ideally, in their first week in college they will attend a Cru or Navigators or an RUF meeting. On their first Sunday, they will start searching for a church that teaches exegetically and preaches the Gospel of grace. Their first date will be with a solid Christian classmate. At their first party, they will say no to the keg-stand and will return home that night to talk about the balance of law and grace, as they sit around their dorm room with their new found Christian friends. Oh, the fantasies of Christian parents.

But here is reality. God does not adhere to our dreams. God has timelines that conform to his desire to be exalted in the maximum manner in the optimal season. Our children and students may find God after they receive their third DUI or while working on their PhD dissertation in evolutionary biology or at the Democratic National Convention. We must depend on the grace of God for the patience and faith to align with His timing.

Prayer

An article, like this, which decries our impotence in ultimately determining the spiritual welfare of our children, often leads to fatalistic despair.  This absolutely should not be the case. If anything, seeing that only God can produce fruit should drive us to the foot of the Cross and to a life of fervent prayer.

For several years, I have journeyed with a family in the discipleship of their children. These parents model family discipleship as they have taught their kids the Word, prayed with them, taken them to church, etc. Their children have wandered spiritually through high school, college and young adulthood. I have watched the mother move from panic to calm largely due to a fervent prayer life. In one of their children it appears that God- in a mystical yet palpable way- is using the random circumstances of his life to draw the kid to Himself. I feel as if I am watching the fruit of faithful prayer at work before my eyes. The Lord undoubtedly pours down grace on our children and students in response to our prayers.

Going Forward

I plan to continue to pursue ministry, where we preach grace and cultivate a deep, biblical belief system in students. We will help students transition to college and will equip them for a devotional life. And, it never hurts to be reminded in the midst of our best intentions that all hope centers on the generosity and sovereignty of God.  

Cameron Cole serves the Director of Youth Ministries at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL. He is the chairman of Rooted: Advancing Grace-Driven Youth Ministry, which holds its next conference, Hope in a Time of Suffering, in Atlanta October 10-12, 2013.

The World's Half-Truth's For Teens Pt.5: "I Am Generally Good"

Several years ago, I received a rap on my door at 6:00AM. A sheriff stood on the porch and yelled in my half-asleep face, “Come on out and see what you did last night.” I had taught a Bible study the night before at a local Starbucks and gone to bed at 10:00PM, so I was confused at his proclamation. He pointed out that my car was on top of the base of a mailbox, and the mailbox itself was three feet from its foundation. The Sherriff then accused me of drunk driving. (After three minutes of common sense investigation, we all saw that my bumper was dented and someone had done a “hit and run” on my car, knocking it on top of a mailbox.)

In those moments where my integrity was challenged, I immediately started to justify in my head how good of a person I considered myself. “I am a youth minister; I teach Bible studies; I’ve never been arrested; I’m nice; I tithe; I didn’t drink until I was twenty-one; I’ve never smoked a cigarette. I waited until marriage, by darn…trump that!” Even though I preach the depth of human sin and theologically include myself in that category, deep down inside in that moment of being challenged, the dirty truth, that I really think that I’m a “good person” based on my merit, came to the surface. 

“I’m a good person; it’s not like I’ve killed anyone.” We all probably have heard this one before from a teenager. Helping teenagers understand their sinfulness may constitute the biggest challenge a youth pastor faces, given the humanist sentiments in the world today. The idea of human goodness is a lie. It’s why we all lock our doors at night, and we don’t leave cash on our dashboard.

In truth, man can become good, but the biblical means, by which this occurs, differ drastically from the secular conception. And if teens embrace the secular sense and means of achieving goodness, they will be set up for a life of either misery, denial, or both.

Where is this true?

The incredible reality of the Gospel is that through saving faith in Christ, in the forensic sense, believers become righteous. This means that God imputes all of the “goodness” that Christ earned in his life to a believer. So, in a biblical sense, believers become “good.” It’s not just that our sins are forgiven; imputation means that believers become perfectly righteous in God’s eyes through imputation. However, this goodness comes through saving faith and God’s generosity. Not one ounce- an utter and complete zero percent- originates within us.

Where is this false?

The world’s conception of human goodness comes through the merits of a person’s actions or mainly through the absence of atrocities. Teens, convinced of their moral adequacy, will justify their goodness by pointing out that they don’t do hard drugs, make racist remarks, or commit acts of violence. Meanwhile, they may point to acts of charity, kindness to other, or community service as further proof of their righteous. (Let’s be honest, in our sober moments, we all think we’re pretty darn good. I know how deluded I am, deep down inside.) They fail to understand that to be good in God’s eyes requires one to be completely perfect. Imperfection equals badness. Period. Man can gain no righteousness by his or her own efforts. They look internally for goodness, rather than externally.

What’s the problem?

Buying the lie that we are good or can become good out of our merits is a miserable place to live. It’s a life of intense pressure. This belief requires that a person try very, very hard all of the time to be perfect to maintain this good. The alternative is to live in utter denial as one tries to somehow justify his or herself in comparison to others, rationalize their sins, or overlook them altogether.

Not challenging kids presupposed belief in their inherent goodness sets them up for burden or denial, neither or which is…..good. Pointing them to the goodness that comes externally from God through imputation sets them free.

Why Kids Abandon the Church (audio)

In the following audio recording, Cameron Cole offers parents explanations of why students abandon the church and how grace-driven ministry seeks to foster life-long disciples of Jesus.

Link: Why Kids Abandon the Church

Cameron Cole is the chairman of Rooted: Advancing Grace-Driven Ministry and serves as the director of youth ministries at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL.

What Are Youth Ministries For: Pt.3-The Overhaul of Belief System

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Several years ago I walked around a shopping mall with a student who was weighing the cost of whether he would walk with Christ as a disciple or go the way go the world. He had a new, non-Christian girlfriend and the question of whether or not they would sleep together loomed.

Before this experience, I would have asserted that the basic function of youth ministry is discipleship-making. That is the Great Commission and primary function of the Church, right? Nobody would argue with such a standpoint.  However, this conversation with the teenager uncovered for me that there is a deeper layer beneath discipleship-making that serves as the foundational purpose of youth ministry. I think youth ministries function to reform and overhaul the false belief system, which all students (and people) inherit as a product of original sin.

A distorted worldview constitutes the biggest obstacle in the formation of disciples. This young man called into question the validity of the scriptural position on sexual abstinence. He proceeded to offer rationale for why premarital sex is not immoral or harmful, based on his thinking. In the midst of this was an absence of the idea that God had his best interest in mind while constructing His Law.

This rebuilding project centers on three primary areas: revelation, self, and God. Just like Adam and Eve, kids believe that authority for truth lies within the subjective, the self. They do not believe that they can trust God’s Word in the same way that Adam and Eve disregarded the warnings God issued about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Moving them in a direction of understanding that truth comes through what God has revealed in His Word serves as a starting point in the rebuilding effort.

In regard to their view of self, teens naturally believe that they can handle life apart from dependent relationship with God, or that they can be “like God.” God is there for help when they need Him but generally they can handle life on their own. Helping kids understand the depth of the problem and nature of their sin, as beings desiring to live apart from God, brings them into an accurate understanding of self.

Finally and most significantly, they believe that God is not good, cannot be trusted, and is against them. The need for repeatedly showing God’s interest in their life, His goodness, His mercy, His kindness, His gentleness, and His generosity is the backbone of the reformation of the marred belief system.

Discipleship-making goes nowhere without a complete revolution in the belief system of an individual. We should aim and pray for movement from these false beliefs to a place where the heart embraces the reality that we are needy sinners living in a world ruled by a gracious and good God who longs to live in relationship with people. The mission of breaking down the false belief system and building a new foundation, rooted in God’s Truth, is the work of a youth minister. 

Cameron Cole is the chairman of Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry and the Director of Student Ministries at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL. He is a candidate for a Masters in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary. 

Ministry Across America: American South

1.) Please describe the context in which you minister (geographically, ethnically, socio-economically, etc.)
I serve in the American South in a suburban context in Birmingham, AL. My students are almost entirely white and upper-middle class to affluent. Attending church is a major social expectation. Whether it is accurate or not, nearly all of the kids in my context identify themselves as a Christian.

2.) What are your students biggest stumbling blocks when it comes to receiving the Gospel?
Students in the South equate church attendance with being a Christian and having salvation. Compulsive cultural Christianity rules the day. They embrace the religious elements of the faith without understanding the central elements of Christianity being about living in relationship with God and of Christ coming into the world to save sinners.

3.) How do teenagers in your region feel about the Church and Christianity as a whole?
Teenagers generally have a positive view of the Church and Christianity. At the same time, while they do not express this, their views and behavior suggest that they view church as a cultural compulsion, that you "just do." ("We go because we go. Right?") Many of the anti-institutional rejections of Christianity seen in other parts of America have not surfaced in a major way down here.


4.) What perceptions and reactions do teenagers in your area have to Christian morality?
Christian morality very often boils down to drinking or not drinking alcohol underaged in high school with kids in the Deep South. A-Team Christian teens do not drink, while second-stringers do, in their eyes. Not drinking makes you good, while drinking means you are not serious about God. Many kids in the South oppose gay marriage and homosexuality but their views on this originate more in "red state" political ideology than a developed biblical theology. Given the traditionally conservative socio-poltical mentality in the Deep South, most teens generally do not have a problem with biblical morality. I will say, though, that over the eight years of my ministry, kids are becoming increasingly geared toward morally relative thinking than when I first started. 

5.) What approaches have you found helpful in dealing with the aforementioned stumbling blocks such that you effectively can share the Gospel with students in your area and bring them in to the life of the Church?
When sharing the Gospel with kids both individually and corporately, I tend to speak in terms of being perfect vs. imperfect before God, rather than sinful or good. So many kids think the formula for salvation is church attendance plus being a good person. They do not understand that the standard for salvation is perfect righteousness, which only can come externally through faith in Jesus. Few kids in the South will accept that they are not good, but nearly everyone will accept that they are not perfect. Therefore, I try to communicate that the only way to be in relationship with God and to have salvation is to be made perfect, something only God can do for you and of which a person is wholly incapable. ("Hell is filled with 'good people,' but heaven contains only absolutely perfect people."


6.) What encouragement would you give to other youth pastors in your area trying to reach teenagers?
I would encourage youth pastors and parents in two ways. First, you need to understand that in the American South seventy-five percent of your work involves deconstructing false belief related to Christianity. You have to constantly remind kids that the faith is about a relationship, not religion. You have to constantly debunk the idea that Christian is a moral code for practical living rather than an invitation to live in dependent relationship with the Lord of the universe. You have to distinguish between biblical theology and Republican socio-political ideology. (Yes, many kids think that anything associated with Republican political ideology, such as gun control, has its roots in Christian theology.)

Secondly, I would encourage youth pastors that we do have a great blessing in the way that kids have a mostly positive view of the church in the South, as compared to other regions of the country. My friends in other regions face enormous struggles in just getting kids to consider attending anything associated with a church. Southern youth workers face less resistance and do not have to work as hard to build trust and overcome deep prejudices against the church.

Cameron Cole is the chairman of Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry and the Director of Student Ministries at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL. He is a candidate for a Masters in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary.

Comforting Words for New Youth Ministers - Part 5: Where Your Credibility Comes From

Dear First Year Youth Minister,

I know that one of the biggest questions and insecurities you face in your first year regards questions of credibility. You are probably in your early twenties, but to some, you look like you’re sixteen. You have a bachelor’s degree (and maybe even a graduate degree), but people talk to you like a high school student. You work sixty to seventy hours per week, but people still ask you if you’re paid for your job. (You resist the temptation to say, “By third world standards, yes.”) You take your position seriously as you plan, study, relate, manage, encourage, budget, teach, counsel, and basically fulfill the management functions of the director of a non-profit organization, and yet people ask you what you are going to do when you grow up, as if you play kickball eight hours per day. In essence, you are an adult with a very serious job, but often people condescendingly patronize you as if you are one of the kids you lead. They talk about your calling as if you do little more than entertain and babysit.

 Meanwhile, you face the reality that you have little experience. You probably have not attended seminary and need to deepen in your biblical and theological knowledge. You see a great deal of education in adolescent psychology and pastoral counseling. You may be finding your way in the “real world” for the first time as a young adult. 

 Be encouraged: You have credibility. What you do is important; it is serious business. You have authority in your space. But from where does this authority and credibility come?

1.) God chose you for the job.

You approached accepting your position prayerfully. You discerned God’s will for your next career step. While the church offered you a position, God ultimately called you to the position and you followed. He did not make a mistake. He has plans and intentions for your ministry. A great quote that I like to lean on is that “God equips the called; he doesn’t necessarily call the equipped.” 

2.) God gave you gifts.

The Lord gave you gifts for such a position, or else you likely would not have received the job. The leaders that offered you the position saw an ability in you to relate to students, a maturity in your faith, and a level of responsibility such that they would not trust you to take other people’s precious children on trips. While you do need to develop those gifts, understand that God graciously gave them to you.

3.) God gave you the Holy Spirit.

Whether you have been in ministry for eight days or eighteen years, you ultimately sink or swim based on your dependence on the Holy Spirit. God is with you in the Holy Spirit; you are not alone. Christ encouraged his disciples in John 16, by saying, “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” You will face impossible situations. You will teach Bible lessons without any clue whether they are efficacious. You will grow weak and discouraged. Understand that the Holy Spirit will work in measures infinitely greater than what you ever will know in this life. The Holy Spirit will minister to your teens. You simply need to trust Him in every step and faithfully follow him to what He calls. 

4.) You are the foremost expert on ministry to teenagers in your church.

Within about six months, you will be the expert on ministry to teenagers in your church. It is unlikely that any parent, pastor, or volunteer will know as much as you do. Your life will involve dozens of conversations with teens, where you are on the front row to the ever-evolving youth culture. You will spend weeks and weekends on trips with them. You may attend youth ministry conferences. You may read blogs and magazines about youth ministry. Trust me: you will be the expert, and it will happen fast. Take ownership of this and use this gift to help parents understand how to love and disciple their adolescent. Help your pastors understand the mentality of the youth in your church, so that their sermons and teachings will connect with the younger crowd. 

5.) You are enough; you are not enough.

You will wrestle with feelings of inadequacy right from the beginning. The reason for this is because as a sinner without the Lord, you are hopelessly inadequate in your position. Recall, though, that Christ has imputed his righteousness on you. Christ has perfected you in God’s eyes. You have nothing to prove and nobody to impress, because you are enough before the Lord by the righteousness of Jesus. You must constantly remember your adoption as a daughter or son of God, and that his grace is enough for you and your ministry.

Cameron Cole is the chairman of Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry and the Director of Student Ministries at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL. He is a candidate for a Masters in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary. 

2012 Rooted Conference Recordings: Cameron Cole

We are grateful for an incredible Rooted Conference. Attendees from fifteen different states came to the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL to discuss and consider how the Gospel of grace informs all areas of youth ministry.

Rooted Conference Chairman, Cameron Cole, offered this short reflection about how the Gospel of grace frees youth ministers from a life of performance to conclude the weekend.

Concluding Reflection: Is Jesus Enough?

Youth Groups in the Digital Age, Part 2

Our youth ministry at the Church of the Advent has experienced a similar trend in students having little interest in Sunday night large group events. At the same time, we have observed a positive trend in another direction. Numbers have grown markedly in attendance at weekly small group meetings, while they have dwindled for large events. This trend has been so salient that it has led to the total reconstruction of the organization of our ministry over the past six years.

My theory on why this trend has occurred rests in the social and emotional state of postmodern teens. Quite simply put, teens are lonely, isolated, and disconnected. Kids want intimacy. Many point to the disintegration of nurturing family structure for this loneliness. Others emphasize the over-programming and intense schedules of children in the pursuit of what David Elkind refers to as “child competence.” Both certainly have a major role in the emotional malaise in which students live.

I personally believe that the evolution of social media and virtual life has played a major role in this social problem, as well. God made people to live in incarnational relationship with one another. Face-face, hand-in-hand, side-by-side. Biblical Christianity embraces the physical realm and embodied relationship. The opposite of what scripture endorses is a gnostic view that the material world is evil and that mankind should strive to transcend above and beyond it.

These realities have large import as it relates to the emotional condition of students. Many students engage in relationship through virtual means more than in an incarnational fashion. A 2010 study revealed that 49% of teenagers verbal communication occurred through text means (email, Facebook, text messages) compared to interpersonal discourse (face-to-face, telephone, etc.). A tremendous amount of student’s social experience occurs in a disembodied fashion where there is no tangible reality. In a sense, they are living the gnostic dream.

My theory has been that students do not desire any more superficial relationship; they access plenty of those via their iPhone. In a large group setting, there is little vulnerability or close connection. I think students really want intimacy, and this explains why they are far more likely to commit to a small group and far less apt to invest time in large meetings.

Seeing this trend, we decided to drop Sunday large group altogether and focus solely on relationship-building, small group Bible studies, and trips, where connections tend to be more intimate. I know many churches view “Sunday night’ as the face or flagship of their ministry and, therefore, resist not having this program. (Everyone seems to measure their ministry by recording how many kids they have coming on Sunday night.) For us, we are comfortable saying, “Nobody wants to come to Sunday night large group, so we don’t do it.” We also are grateful to see that weekly small group numbers continue to grow and students seem content with what we offer in that way. 

Has your church or student group experienced similar trends?  How do you explain the cause, and how have you addressed the issue?

We Can Do Better Than "God Loves You"

Several years ago, I noticed a student who had been consistent in Sunday school attendance had abruptly stopped coming to class. With the encouragement of his mother, the student calmly confessed his beef with Sunday school: “I’m tired of hearing ‘God loves you’ over and over again. We get the picture.”

My initial response was to liken my experience to that of Luther (obviously I was living in fantasy land) who was criticized for preaching the same message- the Gospel of grace- over and over again. His defense was that he would stop preaching the Gospel when his people actually believed it. In this same manner, we effectively have a rule in our ministry that we always mention the basic Gospel- the depth of our sin and the abundance of God’s mercy through the Cross- in every lesson of every Bible study, talk, and class. 

Upon further review, though, I started to understand and agree with the student’s critique. In a world where we love sushi, love our pet, love our newest app, love Katie Perry, love winter, love Frappuccino’s, love the Clippers, and love the smell of fallen leaves, well, love just doesn’t mean anything. To say “God loves you” parallels our feelings for the new Dorito’s shell at Taco Bell or John Mayer’s Twitter humor. 

The word love has been bastardized and marginalized to the point of meaninglessness. While admitting that no language or word can represent the bountiful, passionate love which God has for his people, one must ask which terms rescue the reality from utter banality.

Here’s a start, drawing from scripture and from terms I would rather have a person tell me than “I love you”:

God rejoices over you:  As Zephaniah says, “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness.”

God notices you: This truth, leaning on God’s omniscient and personal nature, particularly lands with many students who experience estrangement from their parents.

God adores you: Well, it’s true.

  

God is crazy about you: An Anglican priest, Don Richardson, closes services by saying, “God isn’t mad at you; in fact, he’s crazy about you.”

God longs for you: This phrase may sound too romantically or sexually oriented, but the Song of Songs presents God’s love for His people as a passionate adoration likened to the longing of two people first in love.

God carries your picture in his wallet: Jerry Leachman, Washington Redskins chaplain and former YoungLife director, regularly uses this metaphorical phrase to capture the sentimental, parental love, which God maintains for his children.

God is fully pleased with you: Through the imputed righteousness of Jesus, God remains pleased with us. This blessing strikes a chord with teenagers who seem to attract the displeasure of parents, teachers, coaches, cops, friends, etc.

This catalogue is just a starting point for thinking more critically about capturing the wild love which God has for His people in a fresher, more meaningful way.

What are some terms that you use which powerfully illustrate God’s love?

Cameron Cole is the chairman of Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry and the Director of Student Ministries at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL. He is a candidate for a Masters in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary.