Coming Up Higher!

I want to begin this weeks blog by expressing my appreciation to all of you who responded to the last blog, both here and to me personally. Being that this blog entry created more responses then all my other blog entries combined, I was overjoyed by the response!

Actions speak louder then words, a very familiar statement to use all and I believe that the church (at large) is becoming increasingly aware of this fact. So the issue is, how are we going to make our words become action.

I believe that in order to see our young people grow in Christ, we have to couple together and give them opportunity to grow. It's not something we can force them to take action on, but when they see us take action and interest in them, as opposed to just talking about it, that's when change will come.

So what do we need to do? I believe we need to take the time to invest, not just in our own relationship with the Lord, but to invest in the lives of our young people, and in the lives of those that don't know Christ. But that takes time and building relationships and sometimes, building relationships means we may have to help someone through an issue over a long period of time and it may mess up our schedule.

I believe when we (Every much including myself in this) begin to have a heart of compassion and a desire to see people grow, by working along side of them, that's when we really begin to minister to those around us and Christ grows within and ministers to us as well.

Your turn to respond

Did you know that we are starting a youth choir?

You're probably thinking, what does a youth choir have to do with "Thoughts on Worship"? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Over the past several months the lord has really burdened my heart with the idea that we are having a disconnect between generations and more and more students are walking away from Christ once they graduate high school. My thought has been, what can we do as a ministry to connect kids to Christ in a way that will relate to them and in a way that will allow us to invest in them. My thought was a youth choir/discipleship ministry.

The idea is to "TIE" students to Christ and to other generations. I'm using the word "TIE" as a acronym for:

Teaming JR High, Sr High, and College students together through mentorship and to team them together with christ through discipleship.
Invite students to use their talents and gifts to glorigy God.
Equip students with opportunities to invest in others.

Some thoughts that I have on why we are losing our studnets once they get to college are
1. Maybe we're focusing to much on program and not enough on their relationship with Christ
2. Maybe we're not allowing studnets a safe environment to work out their salvation (or express their views, goals, ideas, and then train them.
3. Maybe we're afraid we don't have the correct answers to the questions and so we only teach on topics we know.

I have some other ideas, but I'd like to get some input from you, on your thoughts why we are losing our young people once they get to college.