THE GLAM: I’ve been contemplating on how I wasted my years as a Christian in those time I was young. I should have done this and that. It’s like that milk commercial “growth gap” years. With the use of paper dolls as illustration, it shows that between a certain age you have a gap of no growth. If by judging that I can say: Yes I truly wasted it. Maybe you have done it too.

The book “Do Hard Things” by the Harris twins, Alex and Brett (younger brothers of Joshua Harris author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye) does not provide salt for your wounds but insights and a message that its not too late or early to do for the glory of God. Filled with heroic stories, humorous anecdotes and biblical insights from rebelutionaries (as they call themselves) to combat low expectations and wrong culture upbringings that stops teens and young adults to do hard things. Mind you, this not a Alex and Brett show. In the first part its there stories how they amazingly started the rebelution and finish off with ordinary teens stories of what they have done. As they say, this is a different kind of teen book. They should change the title to “Christian Teen Counterculture Made Easy” (well thats every uncool title, please pardon me). Because it is easy to do hard things when your in God’s team.

The part that really hit me are the the Kidult and The Myth of Adolescence (check the link at the end of the review to read the excerpt). The twins thought this book really hard. This not the usual dos and donts for teens. It changes the way you look at things we do for God a great way. Every pages shouts to you “Doing hard things is cool!”. In God’s family your enlisted to be rebelutionaries, but will you heed the call to go out of your comfort zone?

If you think this book is geared to Western readers only, think again. You’ll find in the midst of rebelutionary, stories of three Christian Pinoy teens who done the hard things. Now your worry about getting lost is dropped and you dont need a Penaflorida to inspire you. Just be as ordinary as yourself and you can move the world with the gospel. Prepare to do hard things. It starts by obeying God’s will and putting it to action. Teens (and adults too) the book really has an impact. Its an engaging and easy read. This book calls you stand up, fight back and be cool.

Taste Test: Read articles included in the book originally posted from The Rebelution blog:

My First Shower Nearly Killed Me

The Myth of Adolescence Part 1

The Myth of Adolescence Part 2

Alex Harris print only $10. We will have it available for purchase via the internet soon, but you can pre-order yours via e-mail: info@homeschoolartshop.com. Get it.

With Summer here, GeNESIS takes a month to rest.  We choose to pause so that we can recharge our batteries for another season.  In that rest, we encourage all youth to embrace some summer reading and establish spiritual disciplines.  Summer is a great chance to solidify practices such as quiet time, bible reading, and prayer.  We embrace these disciplines so that our relationship with Christ can increase.  The following is a list of materials to help you grow spiritually during the time of rest that we are taking as a community.

Step 1: Morning Quiet Time.

Spend 30 minutes alone with God.  No cell phone, ipod, or anything electric on.  Just you and your bible.  Read a chapter in Proverbs that corresponds to that day.  After you have read that chapter, read 5 Psalms.  Example: If the date is July 1st you would read Proverbs chapter 1 along with Psalms chapter 1-5.

Step 2: Daily Bible Reading.

Proverbs and Psalms are great but don’t stop there. After your done reading the chapter in Proverbs and the Psalms, read one chapter from John, Hebrews, or any other book of the Bible that sparks your interest.

Step 3: Outside Bible Reading.

Bible reading and morning quiet time are key.  Alongside with your reading, check out some of these books for personal growth outside the Bible:

• If God Loves Me, Why Can’t I Get My Locker Open? by Lorraine Peterson
• Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan
• CAN YOU HANDLE THE TRUTH by PHIL CHALMERS
• Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by Alex Harris
• Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper
• Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen… by C. J. Mahaney
• Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
• Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Lo… by Elisabeth Elliot
  

Read these at night before you go to bed or in the afternoon when you have some down time.

Step 4: Journal.

A good idea for the summer reading is to record what God is teaching you by writing everything down in a journal.  Be sure to include your thoughts on what you read, what your learning, prayer requests, and other thoughts that jumped out at you on the pages you are processing.  This journal will be a great way to talk to others about the things God is teaching you.

Step 5: Prayer.

Don’t forget personal prayer.  Spend time alone talking to God and listening to Him.  Use your journal to help with this discipline.

Remember young men and women that there are people out there who are older who want to walk along side you as you as you establish these disciplines and deepen your walk with God.  Seek out someone who can help to keep you on track as you grow deeper into the Word of God daily!

-Jordan

If you have not heard of the Harris twins, go to their blog now & find out more about them. Maybe you’ve heard of their older brother Josh who wrote I Kissed Dating Goodbye? Or their parents, Gregg & Sono? (Hmm, come to think of it, both of these books sound an awful lot like what my parents taught me growing up. It is SO refreshing to see these principles in print for my kids!!) Anyway, I haven’t read a more exciting book for a long, long time. Every page I found myself nodding, “YEP! That is right! That is so true!” I would tell you more about it, but really & truly; it’s best to just read the book for yourself. I think if I started putting quotes on here, I’d not end. It’s that good.

I am so thankful this book has come out just as my oldest child is hitting the preteen years. For a while now, I have bemoaned the fact that there aren’t big IBLP conferences around like my parents took me to every year as a teen. How I want my kids to have that grounding during those important years! BUT, now I rejoice to see the new resources that are coming out even in the midst of the cultural rot all around us. As the darkness gets darker, the Light shines brighter! Other new resources: The Truth Project, Jumped Ship, The Little Red Book of Wisdom, all of which have come out just since Dad’s passing.

If you have graduates in your church or family, consider passing this gem on to them as a graduation gift. Really, this is supposedly written for teens, but is so applicable for anyone & everyone! It will challenge you at any age, I guarantee. In fact, this book has inspired me to write out a fresh “Best Loved Books” list. This one instantly zooms to the top.

Kids are gnarly these days. Alex, D-mar, Frankie, no clue, Zach and Barret at Johnny Romano Skate Jam 2008. Dem fools are crazy.

A few weeks ago in Dallas, Texas, at the Christian Book Expo, a “conversation” (funny how it’s a conversation only when the emergent church is involved… cute) was held between Emerging Church proponents Tony Jones and Scot McKnight and “non-emergents” writer Kevin DeYoung (Why We’re Not Emergent By Two Guys Who Should Be) and Alex and Brett Harris (little brothers of Joshua Harris and writers of Do Hard Things). To say this was an entertaining exchange is an understatement. McKnight comes off as if he’d just been harassed and beaten down by the emergent police  outside in an alley-way not more than thirty minutes before, and he’s not happy about it. Jones seems to want to spend more time talking about how DeYoung is “mean” than talk about the actual differences between the emergent and non-emergent church. The “conversation” is frustrating to watch but I think also very insightful and illustrative of the differences between the two camps. Non-emergents want to discuss doctrinal differences and how many in the emergent church are border-line heretical. Emergents want to talk about how non-emergents don’t understand the emergent church and how the movement is too diverse for them to speak about any kind of theological specifics. Whenever non-emergents ask the emergents to explain their theology, the common response is that “well, that’s ______________, but not me.” Thus, we never get anywhere. Ahh… frustrating.

Check it here.

I was recommended this video.  It’s a panel hosted by some of the editors over at Chrisitanity Today.  The panel members include both critics, participants, and young unassociated listeners of/to the emerging/Emergent church movement.  I encourage you to watch the whole thing and not just parts, as each panelist shares a unique part of their stories at different times.  It is 88 min long, so take the time if you have a strong opinion or listen to a leader who has chosen to take either a pro/against stance on the Emerging conversation:

A few questions I ask about this:

Where are the women/non white males?

What is the difference between philosophical postmodernism and cultural postmodernism?

What if the panel started with each member sharing the gospel?

What is the frustration really about? It seems to me that it all boils down to someone being personally disaffected in some way with other Christians in the past.

This quote was read towards the end, and I also had read the article and thought it was an awesome response (Mark Galli, CT, “On the Lasting Evangelical Survival”)

What I will do, to my dying day, is work with anyone who knows he was lost but now is found, whose Bible is worn because she repeatedly looks there for God to speak, who finds the Cross the most meaningful of symbols, for whom the Resurrection is not just a doctrine but a power, and who wants nothing more than to find new and creative ways to share the evangel of Jesus in word and deed. I’ll work with these people no matter what scholars decide to call them.

AMEN!

May the Lord’s will be done,

CWillZ

Clay took the youth group to a conference in Louisville this weekend and the theme was “Do Hard Things.” I was only able to go to one session, but the message that I heard was excellent. The main speakers were two brothers who are travelling the country trying to inspire teenagers to rise above the meager expectations that society has placed upon them and “do hard things”, i.e. live a holy life filled with excellence and achievement, far beyond simply existing and not getting into too much trouble.

In our experience working with youth, we’ve seen a few kids who seemed excited about living for Christ, or who seemed to really work hard to excel in one area or another. Some were passionate about one thing, some about another. But most seemed content to simply go to school, maybe play a sport or an instrument and then lie around watching tv or playing on the computer the rest of the time. We’ve had some kids who we know have parents who seemed to be godly men and women, but did not require their kids to even come to church if the student didn’t want to. Just this morning I was speaking with a dad who excused his daughter’s absence today by saying she wanted to be with her friends. He then went on to say, “She’s at that age, you know, where we’re just not cool to be around anymore,” then chuckled and shrugged as if to say, “What can you expect?”

Well, therein lies the problem. Nothing more is expected. I realize that my oldest child just turned six, and therefore my experience parenting teenagers is nonexistent, so I really have no box to stand on here, but I think it’s a safe assumption that when Abigail is a teenager, she will be at church with us whether she thinks we’re cool or not. It will be expected, therefore it will happen. Parents are going right along with society today and expecting little to nothing of their teenagers. And unfortunately, that’s usually what they get. Why do we stop and marvel everytime we hear of a teenager doing something extraordinary, liking writing a book or working hard to help those in need? It’s because it’s so incredibly rare. But why is it rare? Why are more teenagers not stepping up and becoming passionate about something more than who their date for homecoming will be? It’s because it’s not expected. (Did I mention, by the way, that the conference speakers were 19? This morning was not the first time I’ve heard a parent excuse their lack of parenting by saying their child was “at that age.” However, this weekend was the first time I’ve heard a public challenge for teenagers to step and and do hard things.

Hard things, as pointed out yesterday, do not have to be big extraordinary things. Brett Harris, yesterday’s speaker and one of the brothers, gave several examples of what “hard things” might look like. It’s easy, but wrong, to be disrespectful and disobedient; it’s hard, but right, to honor your parents. It’s easy, but wrong, to be prideful; it’s hard, but right, to put on humility. To keep the same theme going: it’s easy, but wrong, to zone out during the sermon or Bible study with a “This is so boring” attitude; it’s hard, but right, to train your mind to focus and discover what the Holy Spirit wants to teach you. It’s easy, but wrong, to be easily angered, or easily offended, or easily irritated; it’s hard, but right, to practice self-control and forgiveness and peace-making. You could go on and on and on, coming up with examples for every stage of life. For parents, it’s easy, but wrong, to give into your kids–whatever their age–and let them have/do what they want; it’s hard, but right, to step up and be the parent and teach them self-control and self-restraint and self-discipline. It’s easy, but wrong, to excuse their behavior by saying, “Well, they’re just at that age”; it’s hard, but right, to place great expectations on our children and then invest in them so that they live up to those expectations. If it becomes expected, it will start happening, as far-fetched as you may think it sounds.

As a parent, I was sitting there listening and just feeling excited about helping my kids achieve greatness, even if it’s in everyday life as opposed to something that gains a lot of recognition. Clay and I are trying to place expectations on our kids to be respectful and mannerly; to perform their endeavors, whether gymnastics or schoolwork, with excellence and not just mediocrity. I am excited to watch them follow our homeschooling curriculum, which becomes fairly rigorous as it advances. I am excited to find ways to push them beyond society’s expectations of teenagers as they get older. But you know what? I was feeling challenged personally as well as I sat and listened to this message. How am I at doing the hard things? Am I content with mediocrity in my life, or do I push myself to live out my day in excellence? Do I shy away from certain tasks or responsibilities simply because I’m afraid they’ll be hard? I’m afraid all too often the answer is yes. So I’m exploring in my own life what “hard things” I need to step up and accomplish. It might just be responding with patience instead of irritation the 47th time my child hollers, “She took away!” It might be simply spending more time on tasks around the house even when I’m tired, and less time checking email and Facebook on my iPod (ouch, that one kind of hurt!). It might be training my mind to dig deeper into the Scriptures in the mornings, memorizing larger chunks and spending more time in meditation. Or it might mean going after something bigger, stepping outside my current comfort zones and acheiving some task that I haven’t yet achieved.

What are the “hard things” you need to start doing? Are you just “at that age”, whether that age is a teenager, or in your comfortable retirement, and therefore think that nothing is expected out of you? Or are you willing to forget society’s expectations of whatever stage of life you find yourself in and step up to do the hard things, to live an excellent, extraordinary life?

Last week I read Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations.  It is the best book I’ve read this year.

I went to Lifeway with 2 books in mind.  One wasn’t there, the other was either not in stock or misplaced.  I had read a review from Dr. Reid of Do Hard Things earlier in the day, and I wanted something to read, so I picked it up.  Then I didn’t put it down.  The book is incredibly easy to read.  It took less than 4 hours and I was just reading leisurely.

Do Hard Things is written by Alex and Brett Harris.  They are brothers of Joshua Harris who wrote I Kissed Dating Goodbye.  They are also the creators of the Rebeloution.  A Blog for youth about battling low expectations.

The thesis of the book is simple.  Our culture has created a myth of adolescence (a term I believe they stole from Dr. David Black) that has lowered expectation for  teenagers to the point that they can be praised for doing nothing except staying out of trouble.  Do Hard Things urges teenagers to rebel against low expectations and “do hard things.”

There are 5 specific types of hard things they address in the book.

1. Things that are outside your comfort zone.
2. Things that go beyond what is expected or required.
3. Things that are too big to accomplish alone.
4. Things that don’t earn an immediate payoff.
5. Things that challenge the cultural norm.

The book offers example after example of teenagers who have bucked this trend and done hard things.

It would be hard for me to express just how much I agree with this book. It is great in premise and in execution.  After running it by my pastor I may give copies of this book to all the parents of my youth.  I highly recommend it to anyone, youth or adult.

I have been saying for years that I am going to write a book called “Football is Hard”  in which I will investigate why parents of church kids are willing to allow them to spend 20 hours a week at football practice and expect them to work hard to be the third string offensive lineman, but they will not require their students to bring their Bible to church.  In other words, why is it okay for sports to be hard, but  not church?  I actually believe that the problem is more with parents than students, and this book illustrates that.  Parents, expect your kids to do hard things.  Read this book then pass it along to other parents.  Your kids already get it.

One last word.  Alex & Brett Harris are not the only ones who understand this.  The people at Student Leadership University get it.  I believe that there is a rising tide toward bucking the trend of low expectations.  Join the rebeloution.

The trained elephant of India is a perfect picture of the power of psychological captivity. Tamed and utilized for its enormous strength, the great beast stands nearly 10 feet tall and weighs up to 5 tons when fully grown. Its tasks may include uprooting full-grown trees, hauling great boulders, and carrying enormous loads on its shoulders. And yet, when the day’s work is done and this powerful beast must be kept from wandering off during the night, its owner simply takes a piece of twine, attaches it to a small branch embedded in the ground, and ties it around the elephant’s right hind leg. Reason dictates that the elephant can easily snap the twine or pull the twig from ground, and yet the owner does not worry, fully confident that when morning comes he will find the animal exactly where he left him. And he does.

I’ll admit that upon first hearing of this practice, I couldn’t decide which was harder to believe: that the owner was confident, or that his confidence proved justified. A beast that can uproot trees is suddenly unable to pull up a twig? What is it about the piece of twine and the small branch that allows them to subdue all of the elephant’s power? I soon discovered that it had little to do with the twine around the elephant’s ankle, and everything to do with invisible shackles around its mind.

My contention is simple: The young adults of our generation are the elephant. Our twine is the 20th century concept of adolescence. Our twig is societal expectations. We stand restrained as a hurting world burns around us. Yet our twine and twig are of a recent origin. Young adults of the past were not so encumbered.

for more, check out therebelution.com.

Do Hard Things

Jackpot! I have been reading the book “Do Hard Things” by Alex & Brett Harris. A couple of my students read it, and have started a small group and several other projects as a result. I needed to catch up with them. A couple of things:

First, this book is very encouraging and inspirational. It is a call to discipleship from teens to teens. Personally I have benefited from it as well.

Second, a potent quotable:

Letting fear control your actions is a statement of distrust in the goodness of God. If we allow fear to paralyze us, we’ll look back at our life with remorse for all the times we could have and should have–but did not.(77-78)

Good stuff. I love it so far. I especially like the variety of ways that Alex and Brett challenge their readers to be excellent and diligent. They cover the bases of the personal, familial, societal, relational, spiritual and intellectual.

Thanks, Alex and Brett. Keep it up!

May the Lord’s will be done,

CWillZ

Here is the last 10 books I read again.  If you missed it before, click here and here.

1) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey
Well this book actually took me a while to read – about a year or so.  It was not a great read – mainly didn’t like his writing style – but the book contains a lot of good information.  Hopefully I become more effective because of it.  Thanks to David Tolbert for suggesting it to me a long time ago.

2) Humility - C.J. Mahaney
This was a book that I really needed to read.   I need more humility, as I am sure that most of you do too.  Hopefully, that last sentence sounded prideful – that was the joke I was going for.  But seriously, I had never heard of a book on this subject so I thought I would check it out.  It was really good.  Not many books are capable of straight-up humbling people but this is one.  Read it, it just might help you with the pride in your life.

3) Letters to a young evangelical – Tony Campolo
Honestly, I really, really like hearing/reading to Tony Campolo.  I always have.  I am not sure why but he just sparks me as completely fascinating in many ways.  He is a brillant guy and although I don’t agree with everything he says (after all, we aren’t the same person), I really love his convictions and his yearning for seeing justice come about to everyone.  This book was written in the format very similar to how Paul wrote his epistles.

4) The Art of personal evangelism – Will McRaney
Ok, so I had to read this book for class.  Still get to put it on here.  It was actually pretty good.  I enjoyed the emphasis that it placed on sharing your faith (obviously it would be there, since that is the title).  Pretty well-written too.  I would honestly recommend it.

5) It – Craig Groeschel
I can’t seem to listen to Craig Groeschel on his podcast much but I love to read his books.  This is a great one for discerning whether or not we are doing church and life for God or for ourselves.  In his words, we either have it or don’t.  Just one quote from the many good ones: “As pastors, we wholeheartedly believe that God exists, but we often do ministry as if he doesn’t.” 

6) The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch
This book has been on my reading list for a while, ever since I saw his lecture on youtube.  But it has always been on the top of non-fiction book purchases for almost a year or so.  It is really, really great.  It is such an encouraging book but it is so sad because of the outcome.  Read it.  Seriously, read this book now. 

7) Jesus wants to save Christians – Rob Bell & Don Golden
My favorite Christian author, so far, is Rob Bell.  He just provokes me to ask so many more questions than anyone else.  Sometimes I don’t agree with his answers but his questions are ridiculously good.  This is a good follow-up book to Sex God and Velvet Elvis.  Getting a Rob Bell book to me is like going to a concert.  It is an event that I looked forward weeks ahead of time.  This one left me wanting more though.  A lot more.  Very good and I recommend it but I also wish it didn’t end when it did.  I was sad anticipating the last page. 

Introduction to Evangelism – Alvin Reid
Ok, another read for my classes.  But still I read it.  I liked it.  It was kind of boring at times and lengthy at others but good introduction to the subject.  Placing emphasis on evangelism is something I need to do more of.

9) Do Hard Things – Alex and Brett Harris
This was a book that I heard about a long time ago, but I had yet to pick it up.  I am not a big fan of Joshua Harris so I didn’t think a book by his younger twin brothers would be that good.  But it really was.  It is written mostly for teens but it was really convicting for me.  Listen to this quote from the blurb (on the back of the book):
“Most people don’t expect you to understand what we’re going to tell you in this book.  And even if you understand, they don’t expect you to care.  And even if you care, they don’t expect you to do anything about it.  And even if you do something about it, they don’t expect it to last.  We do.” 

10) Inspiration & Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament – Peter Enns
Even though I had to read this book for a class, I got to choose it for a paper.  Out of the 50 or so books, I had to choose from, I choose this one.  And I am glad I did.  It was a really good scholarly book.  Peter Enns talked about how we need to have a greater understanding of the Old Testament in order to see Scripture more clearly.  For those who want a good scholarly-type book on the O.T., this is it.  Go enjoy. 

Until next time…live lovingly.

I recently began reading a book entitled Do Hard Things. The authors are Brett and Alex Harris, two Christian young men who have a burden for teens. I am only half way through the book, but it has already touched me in so many ways. Please visit their web site http://therebelution.com/. For more info on the book itself, visit http://www.therebelution.com/dohardthings/index.htm. 

At our youth group for 14-18 year olds we are reading and discussing Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris, using the official study guide. If you’ve never heard of it, here a bit off the dust cover:

THE BIRTH OF A BIG IDEA
A generation stands on the brink of a “rebelution.”

A growing movement of young people is rebelling against the low expectations of today’s culture by choosing to “do hard things” for the glory of God. And Alex and Brett Harris are leading the charge.

Do Hard Things is the Harris twins’ revolutionary message in its purest and most compelling form, giving readers a tangible glimpse of what is possible for teens who actively resist cultural lies that limit their potential.

We’re on chapter two and last night we worked through the cultural expectations felt by our youth. Some were expected to do well at school and that was the only and highest expectation. The other expectations were all negative: to be involved in gangs, spend hours on MySpace or texting, getting into trouble, hanging around, waiting, doing very little.

At a similar age, my rural Scottish culture expected me and my friends to excel at rugby. I didn’t, so I tried athletics (track and field) and competed for Scotland on the same day my school friends were playing at Murrayfield against England in the 1990 grand slam decider. Although the sport was different, there was one uniting factor, we all got there because we were expected to by our culture.

Much of what our Christian youth hear from us is the same emphasis on the negative as they hear from our culture, just in biblical terms. “Love Jesus, follow him, hate your sin, abstain from worldly activities.” This does not work, they need a positive goal. Something like “love Jesus, follow him, hate your sin and do something positive, with your friends, which will make a difference to the world through the kingdom of God all for his glory.” This is putting Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 5:9-10 (your will be done, your kingdom come) before the bit were we pray “deliver us from evil.” (Matt 5:13).

That’s enough from this old buffer. I can’t tell my youth group what they should do. I can say “TNG, I expect great things from you for the glory of God. Go on, rebel against this culture of low expectations.”

“Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” -1 Timothy 4.12

I am a Southern Baptist. I am also a young adult (23 to be exact). These two things alone put me in a declining population segment in American Christianity. Following this past years Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis the cat was officially out of the bag: the SBC is getting older (for discussion of this click here). Simply put, more and more young people are leaving Southern Baptist churches (as well as most other denominations in America) and the end result is that our congregations are getting overloaded with the grey-haired guys in three piece suits who sit in the front row and still use a King James Version of the Bible. Needless to say this is not a good trend.

Just today there is a book coming out by Lifeway Research director Thom Rainer entitled Essential Church? which focuses on dealing with the question, Why do so many young adults (18 to 22) leave the church, and what will it take to bring them back? I have a copy already sitting in front of me, though as yet I have not begun to read it. I do, however, have my own opinion on something that can be done to alleviate this problem.

Now, being 23 and not 53 I am not going to sit here and tell the middle-aged bulk of the congregation in our SBC churches what to do (though I think I may have insight, I don’t feel it appropriate to just throw them under the bus). Instead, the people I want to address are the target age group (18-22 year olds) as well as my population of young adults (23-35 years, roughly).

What is the cry that we hear coming up from the 18-35 year old “emerging” generations? Paint it any number of ways, what it basically boils down to is “I don’t like the way my church does things.” So, what are we doing about it? We’re dropping out of those churches and either roaming around on our own vague spiritual journey or starting new “avant-garde” churches which stick a thumb in the eye of our more traditional, orthodox roots.

Yet, why did we leave our original church in the first place? Did they teach a theology we disagreed with? Was the music boring? Did their modernist ecclesiology offend our superior post-modern sensibilities? The first question I think we need to ask is, What is a sufficient reason for leaving a fellowship? From where I stand there seems to be a lot of juvenile arrogance which comes into play when we assert our psuedo-justified reasons for dropping out of the congregation we grew up in.

But what is it that makes this arrogant? It is because we are in effect saying “I know a better way to do it.” That’s the rub. We are unhappy with our churches because they are unappealing to us and because we think we could do it better. This then leads to a youth exodus from traditional churches and a massive influx of new emerging congregations. Yet what do these look like? The emerging churches are composed of young (typically white, but that’s another post) believers who are experimenting with doing church their own way. And the traditional churches they left? They continue doing business as usual only without as many youth and young adult members as they had before.

So, we are left with this general picture: an emerging church with all youth and no experienced senior leadership and a traditional church with no vibrant, idea-filled young underbelly. The end result from this is that our traditional churches get stuck in their ways, moving further and further into legalism and ritual instead of authentic worship, and the emerging churches spin-off with all types of liberal theologies which are more of reactions to felt injustices and less of seasoned observations from a lifelong pursuit of the Truth in God’s Word. This is not good on either end.

Then what is the solution I propose? Simply this. Young adults, if you don’t like the way your church is being run and you have a biblical conviction to this extent, do something about it in your church! (This goes particularly for SBC members who have a congregational polity). What does this something look like? It looks like going to church meetings, working to rise up in leadership and making your voice heard.

But, you object, the old people won’t listen to me? Well of course they won’t. Look at Timothy in Ephesus. He was put in leadership by Paul as a young man and all of the older church members looked down on him, saying he was too young and disavowing the things he said because they thought he was rash and immature. But what does Paul tell him? He says, strap it up, live the way you know to live from Scripture, and go out there and show them what it really looks like to serve Christ (1 Timothy 4.12). Now of course, this doesn’t mean to disrespect people (1 Timothy 5.1-2), but what it does mean is to show them that when it comes to making a difference in the kingdom of God, there is no age requirement, only a passion and righteousness of life lived.

If as young adults we are dissatisfied with our church we have to step up and step into leadership in the congregation. And if the old guys on the deacon board refuse to pass the baton of leadership to you, you have to wrestle it from their hands. It is up to those generations to fix any flaws they may have in their service of the Lord in the local church, but what we need to do is not sit back and blast their failings, but instead aggressively pursue change. The church is meant to contain a spectrum of ages. Older men and women have as much to give to the younger people as the younger ones have to give to them. If either population is missing in a church then it will not be able to function completely as God intended it to.

I know this is hard. I understand that it is easier to just go off and start your own church instead of going through the frustrations of struggling for a leadership voice. But at the end of the day, God desires for us to take that torch from the older generations, using it to light the church for many more years to come, and not just letting it die out with them. To steal from a couple of youths who are vocal about this cause as well, we must buckle down and realize that God will be most glorified when we “do hard things.”

Hey, well this is my first time at blogging and I don’t know if i’ll be any good at it. I really wanted to start this. As you can see my username is ‘RebelutionGirl’. I was very inspired by Alex and Brett Harris and their book, “Do Hard Things“. I went to the Gaithersburg Conference on July 26th in Maryland. WOW!! What a day!! It was AWESOME! I loved the worship service led by their brother Joel Harris. So I want to DO HARD THINGS for God. Brett was saying how important reading is. I not a very fast reader at all and now I am reading a lot more. I recently read Zach Hunter’s new book “Generation Change“. We really need to help the poor, especially children. You can learn more about Zach Hunter and ‘Generation Change’ at  gchange.org Well, my first post!!