Parent Meeting 11.13.22

Welcome!

Sorry that it has taken so long to schedule this meeting; meetings like this are important to me

My vision is to have parent meetings like this once a quarter.

There are a few different reasons for this.

First, it is my belief that parents are God’s designed primary disciplers of teenagers.

Here are some passages we all know:

Proverbs 22:6 ESV

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Of course, when you realize that John Piper’s kid is a famous atheist, you realize that this verse is a principle, not a promise.

But the principle remains: it is the Christian parent’s primary responsibility to train up their kids in the faith.

What about this one?

Ephesians 6:4 ESV

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Its easy for us to get so focused on the not provoking them to anger part that we miss out on the part where it says that it is the job of the dad to raise up their kids in the discipline and instruction of the Lord

The reason that I say all of this is to say this: you have a hard job.

That is one of the reasons that I have been brought on staff here.

My ministry as a NextGEN pastor is as much to you as it is to your teens

I am here to walk alongside you and to help you in discipling your kids

I want to give you resources that can help you on your parenting journey

During this meeting, I would also like to talk about my time with your teens thus far, and about some future stuff that is in the works, but for now, I would like to talk a little bit more about this partnership between parents and NextGen pastor

Partnership Between Parents and NextGen pastor

Right now, what are some of your greatest challenges as a parent of teenagers?

How can I come alongside of you amidst those challenges?

Something obvious that we have to talk about here is the fact that I don’t have any kids yet

What this means is that, as many good ideas as I think that zI might have about parenting, you don’t know what its like until you go through it.

Thus, I’m not gonna have the best advice on how to be a better parent or something like that

But what I can do is to point you towards some helpful resources

Have you been receiving my weekly newsletters as I send those out?

If not, let me know so that I can put you in the system

While these newsletters can technically be read by anyone (they are easily accessible via our Linktree), I write them with parents especially in mind.

Parents are busy, so I know that clear and consisting communication is ESSENTIAL when it comes to student ministry

You’ll always have access to what our lessons/series are going to be about on those (I can send you my notes if you would like)

You’ll also can keep up to date with all of our events going on (I add them to the church calendar as well)

Also, I have been sending parenting articles each week

I encourage you to read those and let me know what you think (they are usually pretty short and can each by read in 5 mins or less)

There is also a parent resource page on the church website where I am compiling all of these together (show them on my phone)

I plan on subdividing these into categories soon.

One thing that I would also like to start doing for our MDWK messages is to give you some take-home questions that you can ask each week (I will put these in the newsletter)

That way, you have a clear way to engage your teen about the MDWK lesson and to see what he/she learned

These are just a couple of ways for me to walk alongside of you

What are some other things that you would like to see on the weekly newsletters?

My Time Here thus Far

Alright, now I’d like to talk a little bit about what I have done since I have been here

I’ve almost been here for two months, but even in that short amount of time, I can say that I consider my time ministry to your teens to be a highlight of my life

Let’s talk a little bit more about our two primary programs with the studtent ministry: Sundays and Wednesdays

Wednesdays are what we call MDWK, and their purpose is to help students find their place with God and others.

Wednesdays is very much a “launching pad” for what we do

It is the perfect entry point for the ministry, and thus gives the teens an opportunity to go into the mission field by inviting their friends to MDWK

Of course, while it is true that this is a good starting point for visitors, I also want to make it worthwhile for the students that are already saved and have been here their entire lives.

What that means is that we have to create a balance between making it exciting and interesting for newcomers and making it exciting and interesting for students that have been here longer

To me, this is a really exciting challenge!

Generally, for MDWK, the layout is like this: hang time, announcements, game, worship, lesson

For the lessons, we do different, relevant series (usually topical) where we take an exciting topic and see what the Bible has to say about it

Thus far, we have done two series: The Young Yield, and The Bible Q&A

The Young Yield was a series where we looked at three of the most famous Bible verses about being young: 2 Timothy 4:12, Psalm 119:9-11, and 2 Timothy 2:22.

I figured that this would be a great starting point for me with the students; first let’s talk about being young in general, and then we will get more specific and talk about different things that young people experience

Next, we start the Bible Q&A, where I challenged all of the students to write at least one question about God and the Bible

I spent the last four Wednesdays answering every question that I got

And here is something that I cannot say enough: your teens are asking some GREAT questions; I am incredibly proud of the questions that they are asking

It has been an honor to look at these questions over the last several weeks

I want you to hear how good these questions are, so I am going to read them-off rapid fire!

How do we know which Bible translation is right?

How do you restore passion to reading the Bible?

Who created God?

What is our ultimate reason for existence?

Biblical view on alcohol consumption?

Does Jesus feel betrayal or hurt by us?

When did God speak to Joseph?

How can I be a better sibling?

Why did God the Father not come Himself to die on the cross for our sins?

How can we have gospel conversations with people when they don’t believe they are sinful?

How do you handle it when your Christian friends are sinning but you don’t want to break the friendship even when they aren’t repenting?

In Jeremiah, God says that the heart of men is wicked, yet in Ezekiel, God says that the heart is worthy of restoration. Is there a contradiction here?

What are your thoughts on demons, ghosts, and aliens?

Aren’t those questions great??

I don’t know about you, but I think that it is so important for us to encourage teens to ask big questions about God and the Bible

I am passionate about the fact that this is a time in life for them to make their faith their own

They need to believe in Jesus not just because y’all do, but because they themselves have decided to follow Christ

Part of what goes along with that is creating an environment where it is safe to ask questions like this

Plus, if they wait until later to start asking big questions… that’s where we see a lot of deconstructions happen.

So I really enjoyed this series!

The next series that we are doing is based off of feedback on what types of series your teens wanted to go through

I kid you not, a large majority of them happened to put the same thing: THE END TIMES

I thought it was so interesting that so many of them are wanting to know about that!

As a parent, do any of you have any insight into why so many of them are wanting to know about that?

I am excited to go through this with them

What we are going to talk about this Wednesday are the three main eschatological views: premil, postmil, and amil

I land on the premill said of things, but I think that it is important to talk about some of the different views, because this is something that not every Christian agrees on

And then what I would like to do over the following weeks is to talk about some of the things we can know for sure about Christ’s return, and how these should impact the life of the Christian teenager

There are so many different series that i want to do in the future, including...

Technology/social media

Dating (maybe in Feb!)

Mental health (depression, anxiety and suicide)

How to find your identity in Christ

Worship/Music

The Problem of Evil

Being a Disciple

A Study through James

What ideas do you have??

Let’s talk about Sundays for a minute

Sundays exist for students to BUILD their faith

The Gospel Project

More verse-for-verse than Wednesdays, for the most part

In addition to these two primary programs, we also try to do one fun event per month (in addition to open gym every Sunday!!)

In the future, I would also like to start doing one missions project per month

Let me conclude this section by bragging on our leaders

We have some of the best youth leaders in the world here

(group texting, open gym, willingness to jump in and do whatever)

The Future!

I would like to conclude our time tonight by talking about some stuff down the pipeline

One thing that I am doing that we are excited about is an incentive that I am calling “level up the youth room.”

Essentially, the youth room is “level 1” right now, and in order to level up to level 2, we have to get 10 visitor cards filled out

So far, we have 1 that has been filled out

When we level up to level 2, I am going to add a ping-pong table

I am also doing an incentive called the frienship evangelism challenge, where.... (explain)

Here are some other things we have coming up in the future:

Christmas Caroling (Nov 30)

Christmas Party (Dec 14)

Winter Conference (Jan 13-15, registration open now!)

Meta (formely known as “Metamorphosis”

March 3-4

Bethel Christian Center

Summer camp:

FUGE (centrifuge)

Ridgecrest

June 17-21

..... and so much more!

I am also wanting to work on church policy stuff soon to continue to hold the bar high and to keep our ministries safe (stay tuned for more info)

Any other questions?

How can I be praying for your family?