An independent Baptist church.
RR
We live life within a certain set of values, but seldom do we actually think about our values. When we plan activities, particularly at this early stage of our ministry, we try to determine not only the details of the event but also the reasons (values) behind the whole activity. Each time we ask the teens to get together in some way there has been a reason in our minds, and we would not have the activity if it were not for the good of the teen and our church.
With that in mind, we have had several fun and productive activities already, and we appreciate the parents’ help in encouraging their teens to go along with us! While we constantly check and double check our reasons and values, we realize that we are also working with several different families, each of which has its own set of values. We certainly consider those values important, but we will challenge a teen to view a youth activity FAR more importantly than almost any other silliness they could be doing–homework, hanging out with friends (these are the two biggest excuses we get even for missing church!), watching TV, etc. When our reasons clash with righteous and purposeful reasons I will concede, but most often the teen will be helped by the activity. Parents, refuse excuses and realize that maybe their spiritual lives could be enhanced by attending. Even IF our main purpose may be to simply have some fun and build our group, we are always looking for times to talk with them personally, challenge them as a group, get to know their goals and push them toward righteousness.
JULY – Camp
Our first big activity was when we got to go to camp Ironwood! I cannot think of a better activity to attend, and I hope we can take more and more as the years go on. I have already sensed some excitement in the group about next year’s camp, and just this week have determined that we will attend Week 6 when WCBC staff member Bryan Samms will be preaching! Even if no other activity is attended, plan now to send your teen to camp next summer! With Pastor Shettler preaching this year we saw LOTS of good decisions made, and as much as we’ve been able to check on everyone, most of the decisions are actually affecting the teens’ lives still today. That’s a great deal, and it’s far more spiritually helpful than band camp, football conditioning week, road trips and the like. Our 2011 church calendars will be presented in January and you will know the dates of camp (and all other activities) far enough in advance to make sure you do not unknowingly schedule a vacation during those dates.
AUGUST – Beach Bash
A couple weeks after camp we had our annual beach bash activity where we played sand games, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, and watched the sun set over the ocean. While we did not have a devotional time, the activity was not without purpose. It was fun for everyone and a great way for us to get to know the teens a little better. With it being our first time out as their youth pastor, we appreciated the respect and obedience they’ve been trained to have! That means so much to us, and it is a huge stepping stone for life–understanding and obeying authorities even when you don’t even know them well. We again challenged them on the bus ride home to control their conversations and center them around the Lord.
SEPTEMBER – Youth Rally
Very seldom will any activity be more spiritually beneficial to a teen than going to hear preaching! When I was in the youth group I got around friends who liked preaching. When I got my own car and then later got my truck I would drive around listening to preaching. What could be better than some loud-mouthed, red-faced preacher telling me from the Bible how I need to live a cleaner, more Christian life?! Even today I listen to preaching on my iPhone all the time–when I’m out doing yard work, when I’m thinking through something along the same topic, and sometimes just for entertainment! That may seem strange to you, but if it does, ask yourself, “Self, why is that strange to me?” It could be strange because you’ve never really thought about it before. It could be strange for selfish reasons. Do you love the preaching of the Word of God? Youth rallies are wonderful times to get away for a day and enjoy time together around God’s Word. I have said it before and I’ll say it again–almost nothing else is more beneficial to a teen’s spiritual growth than hearing God’s Word preached. In fact, just this morning I listened to a message from Pastor Jim Shettler, and he reminded me of a principle that he had preached at camp this year: Spiritual Decisions + Spiritual Discipline = Spiritual Growth. When God’s Word is preached, the hearer is called to a time of decision. When those decisions are followed by the everyday disciplines of the Christian life, growth occurs. Parents, thank you for seeing the need for this activity, and for sending your teens. Do ALL you can to promote preaching within your household.
OCTOBER – Jr. High/Freshman Activity
Last week the Jr. Highers and the Freshmen battled it out at our house, and the finale of the night was when David got his dues and was tied to the basketball goal with toilet paper! Once again, it was a fun time with a smaller group as we crammed into our house and had a bunch of food and played some silly games. What a joy each of these teens is to be around, and we wish we could do something with them all the time! Their spirit of gratitude and their fun-loving personalities made it a memorable night for everyone. Parents, thank you for waiting around for us to get done! Your teens are a blessing and we thank you for once again allowing us some time with them.
We are doing as much as we can to simply get to know the teens at this stage, and we could not be happier with their spirits to grow and learn. While we have WAY more ambitions, goals and dreams for them than can be accomplished short-term, it’s a blessing to see them desire to be what God wants them to be. Foster that attitude and push them to do more for Him this school year!
Sunday Mornings – From Faith to Faith
It has been an exciting and fun experience (for me at least!) as we’ve been progressing through our two series: “From Faith to Faith” and “The Gender Series.” Sunday mornings have so far been just an introduction to the book of Romans as we dive more and more into it. Our theme verses for the Teens of Faith (and for the whole book of Romans) are Romans 1:16-17, and about the first four weeks were simply spent in a broad overview of the book.
Who wrote it? Why was it written? Why would the author spend time writing this letter to this church in Rome, and why should WE care about it?
As you initially study a passage of Scripture, these and other questions should be forming in your minds. The Bible IS an ancient book, and it’s our job to not only find out what God said, but, through that, what he is saying to us! Our “birds-eye” view of the book showed us that Paul had a distinct purpose in mind in his letter, and he was writing to get the church to see that the Christian life is much more than an event, but it’s a process.
Chapters 1-3 are a major discussion on sin and every man’s standing before God: condemnation. Chapters 3-5 are so precious and beautiful because although we’re all helplessly condemned, God has made a way out of all that through his love: salvation. But that’s not all… chapters 6-8 tell us that God wants his children to grow and change: sanctification. Chapters 9-11 deal with a lot of doctrine and future dealings with Israel: dispensation. Finally, Paul writes that as a person is saved and begins to be changed through the Spirit’s power, he ought to constantly be using his gifts and energy in giving back to the Lord through service: application.
So far, we’ve just barely started in Paul’s intro in Chapter 1, but already as we study God’s Word, we can make no apology for asking more from Christian teens. Paul says that he is a debtor, ready and not ashamed of the gospel. The headline of the book of Romans is that “The Just Shall Live By Faith!” Can that be said of each teen, or does the headline above his or her life say something a little different?
Wednesday Evenings – The Gender Series
Another interesting journey we’ve been on is our study of the Gender Series. We spent several weeks laying the foundation and the biblical goals for our gender, and much of the lessons in the following weeks will be on application.
Marriage – a HUGE step in most of our teens’ lives will be their marriage, and most of the references to gender in the Bible are related to marriage. While we are NOT encouraging them to get married right now, we ARE stressing the importance that the point of dating, courting, engagement–whatever you’d like to call it–is to grow closer to God until each is ready for marriage. God created Adam, but this single human was something that God looked down on and said, “Not good.” Wow! His own creation wasn’t good?
Well, it was not good that man was alone, so he created Eve–someone who was “perfectly suited just for him,” or, “meet” for him. She was his “help” that was “meet for him,” or, “according to the opposite of him.” God created someone so perfect and instituted a gorgeous union called marriage: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh (weave).” Genesis 2:24 Every teenager is right now working on his or her marriage! The way that they conduct themselves now is forming their opinions and habits about how they should act, think and feel about members of the opposite gender. Our goal through the series is that they learn to fulfill their individual roles as a man or a woman now.
God’s image - God created man to bear his image, but he created mankind to bear his image as male AND female (Genesis 1:27). That means that when he first created the perfect man and the perfect woman (before sin was introduced in the garden), man was 100% masculine and woman was 100% feminine in order to perfectly bear His image. Our goal is to be exactly what God wants us to be–a male or a female who is absolutely fulfilling his or her roles. When we neglect Bible teaching, we step away from 100% masculinity or femininity and are not where God wants us to be.
Steps - We spent a few weeks talking about what those steps look like. For women, a step out of 100% femininity would be a step toward the thinking of feminism–a teaching that basically says that women are equal to men in ALL areas, including social, family and church. (Gen. 3:16 “thy desire shall be to thy husband [his position of authority]“) While women and men are equal in areas such as quality, worth, spirituality and value to God, they cannot be equal in role, function and authority, according to the Bible. Pure womanhood is so much more precious and beautiful than our minds can imagine, and looking at it from God’s perspective, one cannot but desire to be at 100%! A woman’s main power is her influence.
Couple that influence with a man’s authority, and you have what I’ve been calling an “unstoppable” couple. A man has no authority outside of God, and we’ve spent a lot of time emphasizing that all the responsibility of the family rests on the man’s shoulders! (Eph. 5:23, 25) A man who is fulfilling his roles as a caring, loving, leading, biblical man carries FAR more authority than some big-mouthed tough guy! In fact, we spent a whole message on how a man steps back from 100% masculinity–by being too soft of a sissy or being too hard of a dictator! (I used the term jerk, but maybe that’s a little harsh for this setting!)
Future lessons – What will follow in our series are more lessons on what those roles look like in our culture and in this time. We are not too impressed with the guys who look sloppy and don’t treat ladies right, and the loud-mouthed, assertive model our culture pushes on our young ladies is far from the beautiful flower that God has designed. 100% masculine is not the macho, tough guy, and 100% feminine is not some dainty little girl who’s incapable of anything… quite the opposite. God desires and commands men and ladies to act certain ways and be certain things. Our prayer is that your teens’ daily lives are affected and that they learn now to be exactly what God has designed them to be. They would text, interact, think, talk, walk and act completely differently if they really desired God to work through their lives.
Parents - Parents, encourage your children to live right, and model to them the attitudes that they should follow. Your influence is far more long-lasting than mine, but if I can be a help in any way, I’ll do my best. Try your hardest to attend on Wednesday nights and have your teens in the Teens of Faith.
Hello again, parents! It’s always a joy to write to you, and as soon as I finish one letter I have floods of thoughts for the next one. I will be sending the following letter to you in the mail tomorrow, but for those of you who regularly check the website you’ll get a “sneak preview” tonight.
Once again, thank you so much for your support and prayer! Your teens have been the best part of our lives the last couple of months, and we appreciate your life’s work in raising them so well.
Paul wrote lots and lots of letters to churches in some major cities of his day. These churches HAD to have been filled with beggars and poor folks who seemingly had “no life” and lots of time on their hands as well as to professionals and major business men! But Paul didn’t relegate the work of the ministry to those who didn’t have anything better to do, so to speak. He explained that a church is made up of all sorts of body parts and each is expected to do the part for which it is gifted (1 Cor. 12-14).
We are members of a body called Calvary Baptist Church, and no matter how busy our lives seem to be, we are given spiritual gifts that are meant to be used in the church. In the Teens of Faith series through Romans we discussed chapter 12 in which Paul explains a few gifts that ought to be used in service. Thankfully, as we look at a week in the life of our church, we can see multiple hours poured into service; but look at your week’s schedule and add up your time in service. I’m not accusing anyone of anything, but it would do us ALL good if we honestly evaluated our hearts in light of our command to serve.
Every week I praise the Lord for the men who spend hours working with the finances. Ladies and men serve in the kitchen, some come every Friday for cleaning or yard work, and many hours are poured into visits, prayer, study and preparation for Sunday School classes. What a blessing to know that people desire to serve the Lord!
Whether you are an adult, teen or child, if you are interested in being involved, we ALWAYS have ways for you to help out. ”Ministry” is not that “little bit of work” that Pastor does a couple times a week… that’s called “preaching.” ”Ministry” is done day in and day out, and lots of people just call it “work.” God will abundantly bless your labor. Just this week we have had people volunteer to be involved as music assistants, and starting today will be adding a couple more hours of “busy-ness” to their lives each week. Do YOU think they’re wasting their time, or would you like a chance to get in on “the work of the ministry” as well? (Eph. 4:12) You’re gifted not for your glory but for God’s.
“Children are given to parents.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again. In fact, I try to preach to them the basic idea that if they are not right with their parents, they are certainly not right with their God! That said, I want it to be clear that parents are absolutely welcome to ANY class or activity we have. If you’re curious about the format of the class or if you just want to see how things are run, come out on a Wednesday night at 7 or a Sunday morning at 10. If you have questions about a particular series we’re in, sit through as many of the messages as you want and see what it’s all about! If you have a hesitation about sending your teen with us on a trip, you’re invited to come along… I’ll invite any help I can get with these ruffians! I hope a parent NEVER feels hindered by the youth ministry, because a major point of our existence is to strengthen the homes in which these teens live. A few parents have already accepted the invitation to join us, and the offer is open for everyone else! We’re here to assist parents, and if you ever have a question, just let us know!
Thanks again for the wonderful opportunities you give us,
Bro. Ryan
God’s Word is absolutely amazing. The chances of one man fulfilling 48 prophecies (let alone the other 250) are 1 in zillions! A mathematician figured it to be a chance in 1 with 157 zeroes behind it, but Jesus Christ fulfilled all those prophecies and destroyed the mathematical odds. Hundreds and even thousands of years separate the prophecies from their fulfillments, and an honest person would really have to hate God to not believe in him. God’s Word is absolutely trustworthy.
I love the Bible because it’s so practical. I love the book of Romans because it pretty much sums up the whole Christian life when you look at it from start to finish. On Sunday mornings, the teens will be preached to about their sin (chapters 1-3), their forgiveness (3-5), their spiritual growth (6-8), some doctrine and future events (9-11), and then some really practical uses of their Christian faith (12-16). The whole book is Paul’s argument that our lives should be lived “from faith (salvation) to faith (sanctification)” as seen in Romans 1:17, and every week will include a biblical message with a practical application to today’s problems. We do well to find out what God said. Once we know that, we can see what he is saying to us. Join us this Sunday!
People everywhere question gender. Few seem to know what God says about it.
Join us every Wednesday night for a fun but informative and challenging time in God’s Word. Not every question will be answered every week, but we will do our best to conform our thoughts to God’s purpose for our gender. We will discuss dating, feminism, thinking, dress, and other issues that everyone faces, and we will do it through the lens of Scripture. God is the only one who has any clarity on the issues anyway, so come see what we should be and do for God.
Dear parents, teens and all other readers,
My wife and I are absolutely thrilled about the youth ministry at Calvary Baptist Church! I just got through some more brainstorming and planning for our Wednesday night meetings, and the more things I think about, the more things I desire to communicate to the parents and teens. I want to say once again that I could not be happier with the spirit that already exists in the teenagers in our church. I speak not only of the ones we got to know at camp but also of all those with whom we have had contact through CBC’s various ministries. I said before that we are reaping a lot of fruit from the plowing, planting, watering and caring that the Burkholders put into that part of their ministry and lives! It is fascinating to see how much a group takes on the personality of its leader, and we would not want this group’s personality to be any other way.
With that said, I want to welcome you to this new portion of the website. The “Announcements” page under the “Youth” tab will include a lot of the details for any upcoming events, but this page will be something a little different. I am always thinking about something, and there are SO many times throughout the week that I think, “Man, I wish there was some way to communicate this.” Right now, my wife and I are coming into this whole ministry as “the kids,” and we certainly realize that. In light of that, we want to conduct ourselves in a manner that would be fitting for the position in which we have been placed, and we cannot express how seriously we take the responsibility we have been given. Now, this does NOT mean that we will be serious all the time and never have any fun, but it does mean that we will do our best to be good examples and teach God’s Word. Also, we will do our best to have clear reasons behind the things that we do so that you can at least have the confidence that our decisions have been thought through.
Our position as youth directors is not a position of authority over the home. Children are given to parents, and the rearing of children is your responsibility as parents. We are here to help the family and provide a place for teens to grow in God’s Word and serve God through the opportunities that the church provides. What that growth and service looks like is weekly meetings, regular activities (all with some purpose in mind), encouragement to serve in the church and much more. I am no authority on youth ministry and I will try to never convey a supreme attitude. In fact, I ask, plead and beg for your help as we jump into this for the first time; we don’t have a clue! I sincerely desire parents who have been through this before or are going through the full-time job of raising teens to teach me, be patient with my mistakes, and help the future of the church by encouraging and growing the youth ministry and its leadership. I may not make every decision just how you would like it, but if that’s the case, please let me know as soon as possible.
Simply put, we will be preaching God’s Word every week to the teens, and my wife and I will love on them like they are our kids. We joked on Sunday that we had just adopted about 40 kids (!), but we couldn’t be happier about it. Thank you once again for the kindness over the last couple of months, and for trusting us every week with the teaching of your teens. If you ever have any questions, please call, text, email, or somehow let Mrs. Jamie or me know and we will do whatever we can to help.
- Bro. Ryan: ryan.rench@cbctemecula.com (See the directory for my cell phone number)
- Mrs. Jamie: jamie.rench@cbctemecula.com
Until next time,
RR
