Owning Faith - Young Adult Class

When you consider what responsibilities you have to your children (or any children that you have influence on), what would you say are your top three responsibilities?

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Proverbs 22:6 ESV

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

Deuteronomy 6:3–9 ESV

3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Luke 14:25–27 ESV

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Mark 3:33–35 ESV

33 And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

Given your top three answers above, around what percentage of your time every week do you spend fulfilling that responsibility?

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Discussion: Do your claimed priorities reflected by reality?

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We live in a very physical world that seems to constantly demand our attention. Children require food, clothing, shelter, education, transportation, and socialization. All of that comes at a price therefore we spend large portions of our days working to provide the “essentials” of life. So often, after those needs are met there is little to no energy left to focus on spiritual training.

There is however a time coming where our precious children will be grown and we will send them off into this world to live on their own. When they leave, what do we want them to know?

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I want them to be able to face a world that mocks their faith and to be unafraid and unwavering in their convictions.

I want them to be so instilled with the principles of God that they radiate a Godlike character.

When they are challenged on their believes, and in this world they will live in you better believe that they will, I want them to know why they believe what they believe and to be rooted in the scriptures.

But I also know that isn’t going to happen on accident. We don’t produce accidental Godly men and women. It is going to take training, it’s going to take effort, it’s going to take us all working together to get our young people to be sound in their faith.

Yet as Christians, we see and understand the need for spiritual growth and development in our children, and we’ve realized the lack of time we’ve had to develop it. So what ministries has the modern church created to help "solve” this problem?

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Childrens church

VBS, Bible Class

Youth Ministry

Discuss the potential good and the potential hazards associated with these kinds of programs:

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Removal of the children from their biggest influencer

The truth is that we have a time problem.

teaches children that church is something done at a building and not in the home

Gives the false sense of accomplishing our top priorities.

How can the local church change what we’ve traditionally done regarding youth ministry into something better?

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Shift youth ministry from a focus on the youth, and instead rename and reimagine it as a “youth and family” ministry.

Instead of a youth minister being given the responsibility to teach faithfulness to the children, our youth and family ministers should be empowered and taught how to strengthen the families of the church as they work together to create faithful Christian men and women.

That is what this class and this book is all about. We want to stop hoping and wishing that we are doing enough to spiritually prepare our children so that when that day comes when we release them into the world we can do so with no regrets. That we know we took personal responsibility for their spiritual development, but not only us, that we had a team made up of other families within the church that worked just as hard as we did to get them to where they are ready.

Discussion: What are your biggest fears for our children as they prepare to face the world?

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Owning Faith - Young Adult Class

Why it Matters

It’s About Time

The church, our children, and us