So, did you find yourself grumbling less and less last week? Were you more aware of the impact of your words? I hope last week’s challenge helped you realize the impact of the words we say!

Today I want to talk about another area where Christians sometimes hinder others–when we try to be something that we aren’t.

What do I mean? Well, sometimes a story from another source says it best. The following is a quote from the August 1, 2014 “Breakpoint” commentary from Eric Metaxas. What he was discussing was research that looked for answers as to why many kids stop living the faith they grew up on when they get to be young adults. This may surprise you:

“Instead of would-be Richard Dawkins’, the typical respondent (who walked away from their faith) was more like Phil, a student Taunton interviewed. Phil had grown up in church; he had even been the president of his youth group. What drove Phil away wasn’t the lure of secular materialism or even Christian moral teaching. And he was specifically upset when his church changed youth pastors.

Whereas his old youth pastor “knew the Bible” and made Phil “feel smart” about his faith even when he didn’t have all the answers, the new youth pastor taught less and played more.

Phil’s loss of faith coincided with his church’s attempt to ingratiate itself to him instead of challenging him. According to Taunton, Phil’s story “was on the whole typical of the stories we would hear from students across the country.” (Metaxas)

Now I’m sure that many churches that do this really do think they are doing what is best for their kids. I don’t think a church would purposely mess this up. But, isn’t it telling that what this research showed is that teens want more JESUS and less fluff! Sometimes, we think Jesus is too polarizing for today’s generation so we must somehow work to make our youth groups “cool”.

But in reality, teens can handle and actually want so much more. Many do hunger for the Jesus of the Bible! We have to give them what they want! Hold them to high standards–not our standards but Jesus’ standards!

Your challenge this week is to think of teens in your area of influence. How can you give them Jesus this week? In my job, I work with 300 11-14 year-olds everyday. I need to answer the question above also! Let’s not lose this upcoming generation because we were trying to be “hip”!

More to come…
Jeremy