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Part of the Local Church
Series | Marks of a Healthy Student Ministry
I retaught my series on the Marks of a Healthy Student Ministry almost a year ago. The introduction is here and without further ado the actual marks finally begin.
A healthy student ministry has people who are part of the local church.
The Old and New Testaments are completely silent about Student Ministries. There are no verses that describe ministry focused on young people.
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The Marks of a Healthy Student Ministry
Series | Marks of a Healthy Student Ministry
It was four years ago–July 11, 2001 to be exact–that I preached my very first message at Grace Bible Church. I was exhilarated that Wednesday night as we began to lay out the course for our student ministries. A lot has happened since then, both in individual lives and in the ministry, but there are some things that are still the same.
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Recommended Reformation Resources
I finished preaching through the Reformation solas again and wanted to put together a list of recommended resources for further study, similar to the online Edwards resources list I posted after this past Snow Retreat. Unlike that list, however, I’ve also included some books that are not available to read online.
See more about the Reformation Wall
Books Reformation general: Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? by James Montgomery Boice After Darkness, Light edited by R.
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The Precious Possession of Diligence
Many of you know that my dad passed away early Monday morning, April 17. We travelled to Ohio for his funeral last week and soberly enjoyed the time we were able to spend with my mom and sister as well as other family and friends. I had the privilege to speak for a few moments at his memorial service and the rest of this post is the substance of my message.
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The Best Online Edwards Resources
In spite of the fact that the 06SR is over, I am hoping that many of you will desire to learn more about and from Jonathan Edwards. While curious readers may already have clicked through my Edwards delicious tags, it seemed like an annotated list of Edwards resources available online might help get you started.
Photo thanks to Tony Reinke
Jonathan Edwards.com | This is the self-proclaimed "World's Largest Edwards Web Site,"
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Why Go to Church?
I’m normally don’t enjoy email forwards, but this one was different. It was sent to me by my friend and fellow one28 staffer, Chuck Weinberg.
A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. “I’ve gone for 30 years now,” he wrote, “and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them.
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How to Destroy Unity
The theme of this year’s Grace Academy Junior High retreat was unity. I was asked to address the junior high students on Thursday night out at the Warm Beach Christian Camps & Conference Center, specifically at the trusted W-Bar-B Ranch. The passage I selected to preach from was Colossians 3:14. Here it is in the ESV and the NAS:
ESV - And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
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A Notice about Prayer
You can’t be a Christian if you don’t pray. I’m not talking about prayer being a work that you do that saves you or sanctifies you. I am not talking about something else that you need to do to make God happy. I am simply looking at it from the standpoint of standard Christian practice. The reason some people don’t pray may be because those people aren’t Christians.
Consider first, Christians are to be like Christ – and Christ prayed.
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Vocabulary for OT Young People
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
The OT is a great place to start in our look to find adolescents in Scripture. We find people of all ages in the OT. There are numerous chronicles of babies, kids, young people and old people in the OT. This is most likely due to the abundance of narrative writing (that is, writing that describes events and history) as compared with the primarily theological (and propositional) nature of the NT.
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Adolescents in the Old Testament
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
There is a great old story about King Rehoboam in 1 Kings 12. At the beginning of the chapter we find Solomon’s kingdom divided, and Solomon’s son Rehoboam was made king in the South. The people of Israel petitioned the new king to lighten their heavy work burden and the high taxes placed on them by Solomon (vv.1-5). The new King Rehoboam sent the people away with a promise to answer in three days.
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The Easy Sell of Irresponsibility Excuses
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
This is (finally) the eighth and last ingredient in the growth of adolescence: it appeals to the flesh. Everything about adolescence appeals to human nature, which left to itself pursues laziness, irresponsibility, and if possible, an excuse for it all.
For example, adolescence appeals to the most basic attitude of sinfulness: pride. It makes adolescents out to be special and unique, significant and great. And if a teenager’s problem is a lack of self-esteem, their pride doesn’t need to be deflated, but inflated!
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Adolescence Growth Enhancements
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
Though we’ve finished covering the eight ingredients in the growth of adolescence there are a few additional elements that have enhanced its growth.
For example, the age of marriage. The myth of adolescence (and its real results) has obviously had an impact on the age young people get married. Under Roman law (2,000 years ago) women could marry at twelve and men at fourteen. A thousand years ago this was true under English law as well.
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The Expansion of National Media
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
Whether it is mass produces pop music, or cable television, or the internet, adolescent culture is disseminated and domesticated by national media outlets.
One of the first examples of this national media influence in the spread of adolescence was the show American Bandstand. This was the original TRL (Total Request Live). This weekday afternoon dance party program had its national debut in 1957. It was created by Walter Annenberg who was also the owner of Seventeen.
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Buy Biography
Good afternoon blogreaders! I haven’t much time to dilly-dally around writing a blog, but since Mo and I are off to the elders’ retreat tomorrow through Friday, I thought I’d get at least one in before departure.
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been to the one28 home page. And if you’ve been to the one28 home page, you’ve probably noticed that the 05SR Session 2 mp3 on Sola Scriptura/William Tyndale is uploaded for your downloading pleasure.
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The Emergence of Marketing Strategies
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
This might be one of the biggest reasons our culture has perpetuated the myth of adolescence…because they are easy to sell to. And so the sixth ingredient in the rise of adolescence was the emergence of age-targeted marketing strategies. Whether it is because companies figured out that peer pressure marketing works or because most teenagers aren’t paying the electric bill, and therefore their income is disposable, adolescence is big business.
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The Evolving Popularity of Psychology (Part 2)
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
The most obvious and direct way that psychology has helped to establish the idea of adolescence is by it’s blatant claim to objective conclusions regarding teenagers. Scientifically “proven” claims about adolescence are sold to us by the truckload. Professional psychologists deliver their findings as facts. Anyone who challenges these “facts” without a PhD in the field is passed off as a simpleton.
Psychology has hijacked our thoughts about the possibility of a mature teenager.
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The Evolving Popularity of Psychology (Part 1)
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
The fifth ingredient in the dominant belief in adolescence is the evolution of popular psychology. Of course, psychology is simply “the study of mental life.” It is a field concerned with mental processes and behavior looking at the emotional and behavioral characteristics of an individual or group. It introduces itself as science, attempting to observe, identify, describe, investigate, and make categorical conclusions on human phenomena.
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The Establishment of a Juvenile Justice System
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
The fourth ingredient to the growth of adolescence is the creation of the juvenile justice system. This was developed to segregate younger lawbreakers from older ones and produced a different system of record keeping, a different standard for the punishment and probation for “juveniles.” Just as teenagers were no longer expected to be responsible to support themselves, they were no longer held responsible for their criminal acts, despite the fact that for thousands of years prior the legal system treated teenagers as adults.
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The Expression of Parental Wishfulness
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
The third ingredient in the rise of adolescence is the expression of parental wishfulness. Teenagers are not the only ones who pursue an extension of their immaturity, since they could not pursue it without permission. Many parents themselves are heavily to blame for the current state of adolescent immaturity in our culture whether they intended to promote it or not. Consider the following.
Most parents hope that their kids will have it easier than they did.