First off, I use the word sermon, not message because I think a sermon is more effective for youth ministry. Let me explain the difference (or at least the way I see it). A message is like an essay. You study a passage of scripture and you write down some analysis. At the end you reflect back on the analysis and add in some application. It’s almost like a loosely formatted essay.

A sermon is different. A sermon requires crafting. You have an intro that addresses something about the human condition so that the teens can identify with the sermon. The intro has all the background information. At the end of your introduction is your proposition which addresses the major points of your sermon similar to a thesis statement. Then you carefully craft each main point from the biblical text. In a sermon you apply the text as you go through it, not waiting until the end. The end is the conclusion which includes a final exhortation and a quick synopsis of your main points.

So you can see that a sermon would take much longer to write than a message. Messages make good blog posts, but can often become dry as you try to present them to your teens. Sermons are structured and illustrative and are designed to keep the attention of the audience. That’s what we want as youth ministers.

I know you want to know how long, but I’m going to ramble on a little more first. A sermon needs to balance exegesis and formation. Many times we will be on the freeway and writing the sermon in our minds. We get to our studies and we dive right into the formation of the message and only presume to understand the text. Please, for the sake of doctrinal truth, never assume you know what a passage means. Get out your Greek text and you concordances and dictionaries (you can leave the commentaries out until the very end) and make sure you understood the text completely. Then at this point you can start your formation.

All the same, don’t neglect the formation. Several months ago I have showed up for youth group excited about the text. I had several hours in study. I was passionate about my findings. But, I totally failed to communicate God’s word because I never got to crafting the sermon. I got up in front of the youth and proceeded to work my way exegetically through the text, explaining my findings…it wasn’t even a message, none the less a sermon. And it could not have been less effective. We need balance.

When it comes to time, you need to let the text be in control. I like to begin my Wednesday night message on Friday. Once I have the raw exegesis I will have a pretty good idea how much time I need to dedicate Mon-Wed to the rest of the process. Exegesis usually takes me 1-3 hours depending on the passage.

Formation can take another 1-3 hours. You need to think through transitions. Preach the text in your head, if not to an empty room, to see if you are communicating well. I have trouble illustrating so I need to spend lots of time making sure I have an illustration to clearly demonstrate the truth of each of my main points.

Finally, don’t forget to pray over your sermon. You certainly know this should be done before you begin your exegesis, but it better be done before you get to the podium. I like to have my Wednesday message done on Tuesday. This way I can spend an hour on Wednesday in prayer, bringing the text before the Lord and asking His guidance in delivery and asking Him to prepare the hearts of the teens to hear the Word. In this time you will likely feel called to make some small changes, so that’s why I make it an hour. As a preacher of the Word, you are God’s anointed mouthpiece—His prophet. We need to be sure we speak the truth. And as Shepherds, we desire that the truth change the hearts of the hearers.

All that to say, a sermon should take anywhere from 3-7 hours. I try to stay on the 3 hour end, but usually land around 4-5 hours.

My prayer for you is that you will hear the charges Paul gave to Timothy to speak the truth and to do the work of an evangelist. I pray that your dedication to the task will cause your hearers to experience the change that comes from the truth of God’s word.

In about six weeks I’m going to start a study with our graduating seniors. We are going to talk about God’s will for their lives and about faith. It breaks my heart that so many teens walk away from the church when they graduate. For some, they never had genuine faith derived of a love for the Lord and so the temptations of the world quickly draw them in when they move off to college or move out of their parents house.

Others simply don’t know how to connect with the Christian culture outside their church. Many go off to college and get involved in a dorm Bible study and feel that is good enough. Slowly, they are pulled away from regular fellowship until they have become completely ostracized from the church body.

Where we do what we can to inspire genuine faith in our teens, we can only do so much. They have to decide to follow Christ for themselves. But, when it comes to genuine believers who honestly want to serve the Lord, but are ill-equipped for the outside world, dare-I-say, the church is failing miserably.

I’m dealing with this issue by running a class (novel?). When I get it all together it will be put up on the website for others to use. In the mean time, I have some other thoughts. First, here is a quick list of things to consider educating your teens on:

• Spiritual Gifts—Understanding their gifting will help them to know their place in a new church environment (see youth spiritual gifts test).
• Unity of the Body—They need to know that there are other great churches just like yours and that they are not abandoning their friends and family by joining a new church.
• Denominations—There are some scary things out there today. Do a study on the history of the church. Show them where your church’s roots are and show them how to find other churches like it (with theological and traditional similarities). To put it frankly, a student ought to know the difference between a Pentecostal and a Baptist church. If your conservative So Bap teen decides to visit a Pentecostal congregation, they may be so shocked that they never step foot in a church again.
• Genuine Faith—Let’s not leave this out. Saving faith is faith that produces fruit for the kingdom of God. Do they have that? Dare I say, not all.
• God’s Will—Do you believe that God sovereignly controls all things, even your teens vocation? Do you believe that they can go do anything they want, so long as it’s not sinful? Most of us fall theologically into various places between these two perspectives, but your teens need to be educated to find out God’s will for their lives.

I wish I could guarantee to have some materials out for you to use before your teens graduate, but I’ll barely have my class together by then. As I was researching for my own class today I found a book called Sticky Faith by Kara Powell. This book is rooted in a theological tradition that is more liberal than I am used to so I will not be using this book rigidly. There are, however,  a lot of good observations in this book. It certainly can be a useful resource for anyone who wants to do this sort of study.

You can download a sample chapter here. Or you can purchase the book here. Notice also that there are multiple versions: parents or youth workers, DVD or book, book or ebook, etc.

My prayer for you today is that you would become passionate about your teens drawing near to Christ in genuine faith and that the church would be a place that fosters long-term growth in our youth and equips them to live as Christians through their young adult years and into adulthood.

For today’s discussion, let’s talk about what you are doing or have done in the past to transition your teens from youth ministry into young adulthood. What works? What doesn’t?

So many youth groups are becoming social time. I recently surveyed job postings for youth pastors around the US. Nearly every posting mentioned that they want a youth pastor who is good at running programs. Words like ‘high energy’ were all over the postings. These postings were in stark contrast to those who were looking for a pastor to foster relationships and build true disciples. I’m not saying that you can’t have both, but we tend to be focused on one or the other.

I got this message from a teen who is having a serious problem with this. Katie from Georgia writes:

I’m 14 years old. I’m just wondering what I can do for my church…and God. I try to go to church on Sundays. I LOVE to help out with vacation Bible school in the summer. I don’t go to Wednesday night youth group because it’s mainly just time for kids to socialize. I want it to be more about God and not time to socialize. I don’t go on mission trips for the church because I get terribly homesick. I just want to know if there is anything else I can do for my church. I love God sooooo much and want to do more for him, but I’m not sure what I can do other than pray and worship.

OK, guys, if our teens are seeing it, then we ought to take this seriously. I want to challenge the youth pastor’s out there. Here’s some questions for discussion:

1. In a few words, what is your philosophy of Youth Ministry?
2. Do you gauge success in ministry by numbers or spiritual fruit?
3. How do you define spiritual fruit?
4. What does the Bible say about how to do Youth Ministry?

My prayer is that you will consider these things and that the Spirit will challenge you to make changes in your ministry that will draw students to the throne of grace to find salvation in Jesus Christ by becoming faithful, fruit producing disciples.

When I started youth ministry, our pastor asked me to make a two year commitment. I was young, mature enough in my faith, but juvenile in my understanding of ministry. Needless to say the two year commitment seemed like eternity. I committed to it and before I could blink two years was gone—and then some.

As I look back, I’m not sure what I expected to happen. Did I think that in two years I would become a pastor? maybe a senior pastor? Certainly, I did not. And it’s funny, because today there is nothing I would rather be doing than youth ministry. If my pastor were to ask for a ten year commitment, the flesh might say no, but—in all honesty—my mind would be at ease.

I think of Paul who wrote:

…to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me…[so] I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.

Philippians 1.21-22, 25-26

As I think on this, I think, ‘so what if God wants me to do youth ministry for the rest of my life?’ I will continue in youth ministry for the progress of faith in the youth of my church and community so that through my effort—which is executed in Christ’s strength alone—they will learn to boast in Christ Jesus; they will abound for this account.

Join in the conversation with me. How long have you been in youth ministry? Are you a volunteer or paid staff? Full-time or part-time? Do you see this as a long-term ministry or a stepping stone to something greater? How would you feel if God called you to full-time vocational youth ministry for the rest of your life?

I’m preparing for a study titled, “Children’s Bible Stories.” I want to dig into the story of Noah and the flood, Daniel and the Lion’s Den, Creation, Cain and Able, Jonah, and so on and so forth. I want to teach the full breadth of the truth of those passages as I feel they have been neglected to a great deal in Sunday School classes. And it will be fun.

There are some challenges, however, in studying these passages. This challenge can be avoided by looking at our reading and study methods.

The number one reason people don’t read the Bible is that they ‘say’ they don’t understand it. When you really get down to it though, people do understand the words they are reading. They just don’t understand what to do about it. This is a challenge for adults as well as teens. I think that’s probably why people tend to stick to the New Testament. Much of Jesus’ teachings can be directly applied. Similarly, we have heard preaching on so much of Paul’s teachings that we understand implications of the text without having to think critically about it.

As we turn to pulpit or teaching ministry the challenge gets greater. No longer can we ride on the coat tails of the great preachers and commentators, but we need to study the scriptures and think critically about them for ourselves. I believe it is through this process that the Holy Spirit will enlighten us—not to a new meaning of the text—but to the application of the text needed for our audience, youth.

Most people study the Bible like this, looking for parallels between the culture of the text and the culture we want to apply it in. We try to place ourselves into the scripture’s context by drawing on similarities and differences in the cultures. There are two major problems with this approach.

First, we simply are not the original hearers of the Words and we were not the original audience. They lived in a time and place that was distinctly different in nearly every way. It is logically irresponsible to directly apply the scriptures in this way. As you explore this further, you will see that many scriptures do apply this way such as the command “Do not murder” (Exodus 20.13), but we will be enlightened to a deeper meaning of many other scriptures.

Second, there are disconnects as demonstrated by the red line. What do you do with, “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk” (Deuteronomy 14.21)? We can try to spiritualize it, allegorize it or we can ignore it all together. But, any of those would be somewhat irresponsible. We can go to commentaries. If you did, you will find out that this was a pagan fertility ritual, but I’m not sure that knowledge makes it applicable even though it’s interesting. Let’s look at a better way to handle this.

When you study God’s word, try to look at it through God’s eyes. Specifically, we are trying to find a universal theological truth (or anthropological or sociological). I call this a UTT. This is a single truth about God, man or relationships that is present in the text.

You take the UTT and you apply it in your own culture. The whole process looks like this:

Why didn’t God want the Israelites to cook a goat in its mother’s milk?

Our research will show us that He didn’t want the Israelites identifying with the false God’s of the pagan rites.

Why not?

Thinking critically: it demonstrated faith in their own practices instead of God’s provision (works not faith).

So what’s the UTT?

God’s people should rely fully on Him for all things and not on the work of their hands.

How does this apply in the cultural context?

For teens, I like to challenge them to think about college. Many of them will be ready to go to college. Others want to go into the work force. Almost never have they thought about what God would have them to do. Certainly they are not considering explicitly sinful careers, but they tend to be focused on either the paycheck or what they would find pleasure in. Very few are focused on God’s will.

As I get back to my ventures in the OT Sunday School stories, I’ll need to be certain to look for the UTT. As I look at how to apply the story of creation, I’m reminded that God desires communion and fellowship with man. How do I know that? He walked and talked with them in the garden. Before sin occurred, that was what God and man did together. How will I apply that with teens? By asking, ‘Are you walking and talking—having communion and fellowship—with God?’

I know that we all have different practices regarding our preparation and I don’t intend to change any firm convictions with this model, but I do pray that as you study God’s word, that He will enlighten you to His view (UTT) so that you will experience the full truth in your life and apply that truth in the lives of the teens you serve. May God bless you in all you do as you pursue the truth in God’s word.

In any ministry, but especially in youth ministry, there is a tendency towards discouragement. We set biblical goals and we work hard, expecting that God will bless our ministries and at times we see our work as basically fruitless. I think what we need is a new perspective—a biblical one. Patricia from Baja Mexico writes in with the following concerns:

I work with 5 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17. It has been hard to get them going because, though all of them say they believe in God, none of them want to read the Bible by themselves. We have tried games and activities to motivate them. My goal is to encourage them to read the Bible. I believe that I have a good relationship with them. When they attend, they learn and they enjoy. However, it is a problem for the parents to get them out of bed and none of them are motivated. They worked well when we made a play about the birth of Jesus, but, that has been the only time they had initiative.  Do you have any advice? I pray and do my best but still worry that I’m not accomplishing my goal.

What she is experiencing is very typical. She has a desire to see her five teens grow in their walk with the Lord, but cannot get them motivated. James had a way of dealing with this. He writes, “…faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2.17). As people profess Christ, but do not exhibit the fruits of service, James deduces that their faith is, in fact, dead. These are not simply immature Christians, which need nurtured, but they are not really Christians at all if they have no desire to serve Jesus Christ as Lord.

What is needed is a return to the essentials of the faith. Instead of pursuing maturity, pursue salvation. I recommend studying exegetically through one of the gospels—that is passage by passage or verse by verse. Teach the teens about the depravity of the people in the story. Teach them about the righteousness of Christ. Teach repeatedly how His sacrifice provides atonement for sins. And most of all teach that salvation (escaping from punishment of hell) is by grace (Jesus’ death on the cross) through faith (faith which results in a servant’s heart towards Christ) (Ephesians 2.8).

Certainly there are many lessons in the gospels which are not directly related to salvation, but I like the gospels for this sort of study because the main character is Jesus. As a note: teach the full breadth of the passage, not just the message of salvation, but realize that there is always an implicit reference to salvation in the gospels because Jesus came to save. So you can teach the edifying message and make it evangelistic at the same time. You can look at my ‘Walk with Christ’ study to see how I do this.

I mentioned earlier a perspective change. Often times we are concerned with our own goals for ministry. We need to realize that our goals are not necessarily God’s goals. Many times we teach and our message falls on deaf ears. But, we must remember that God is the Lord of the Harvest (Matthew 9.38) and He alone will bring fruit where He desires. We cannot make our teens react to God’s word; it is the Spirit that moves within them to bring them to repentance and to sanctify them. So, the reaction of our youth is not a direct reflection of our efforts. In fact, it appears that Patricia is doing exactly what she needs to be doing with her teens.

At the end of the day we keep praying as Patricia does, thanking God for the work that He is going to do in His timing and we keep doing what He has called us to do, faithfully teaching the Word. My prayer for Patricia and for all of you leading youth ministries is that you will be encouraged by God’s word, that you will remain zealous for His truth and that your ministries will be affected in God’s timing by your efforts.

“…faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead”

(James 2.17)

I think most Christians realize that genuine faith results in the fruit of service. Our claim to faith in Christ is nothing if we do not actually demonstrate our faith through works in the church and community. Realize it is not the works that save us, but that true saving faith is demonstrated by our works.

As a youth ministry leader one of our primary goals is to foster genuine faith in the teens in our ministries. This means that we have to be providing them ample venues to demonstrate their faith within the church.

It’s my understanding that teens fall under the radar in many churches today. Still many others do a great job of integrating teens into the regular service in the church. Let me give you a few ideas that I’ve had—not for you to copy, but to give you ideas of your own:

1. Do you have a youth room? Who cleans it? A weekly or bi-weekly cleaning of the youth room can be a great area of service and will likely result in a cleaner room in the long run.
2. We have a youth led worship band. They lead the youth and young adult ministries in a time of worship every Wednesday night and at special events. This is a great time for the leaders to learn to lead spiritually and to practice that from within the group.
3. One of our young men has been studying purity. I’m working with him on his exegesis and teaching him to craft his study into a message which he will be presenting to the youth group in three weeks.
4. Today is Valentine’s Day! Every year our teens pitch in to serve and help in the kitchen during our yearly Valentine’s banquet.
5. Often we have office tasks that need attention, so some of the teens will step in to help in the office under the direction of our office staff.

These are just a few ways that the teens of the church can serve. Get creative. Maybe you have some teens that would be valuable on the Sunday worship team. What about running games for children’s ministry? What about cleaning the church or gardening? There are many areas that our young men and women can help to serve Christ in the church. We are doing them a great disservice if we neglect to offer service opportunities to them.

As you both encourage them to serve and provide them with the venue to serve, I pray you will soon see them growing in their faith and in their devotion to Christ.

For years I have been running a youth ministry with a significant volunteer staff. We have had staff meetings in the past, but this year I really want to make the effort to have monthly meetings with the staff. We recently had our first meeting of the year. You might wonder what we talked about and what we did.

Many times staff meetings are planning meetings. Let’s get everyone in the room to brainstorm next month’s events and decide everyone’s roles. Possibly it’s just me, but I find it easier to plan most events myself and I don’t find that my volunteers really care to have much input in this area. I pray for the Lord to give me direction and work with the other ministries as we put our camps and conferences and such on the calendar.

If we didn’t plan events, what did we talk about then? First, we had a devotional. This week we discussed the topic, ‘Why Do Youth Ministry’. Afterward we discussed philosophy of ministry. Finally, we talked about why I wanted them to know that stuff. How many of your volunteers have considered their philosophy of ministry or the purpose of youth ministry? I wanted them to understand the heart behind the practices. As youth workers, we rarely do anything without a reason (whether we realize it or not). My reasons are hidden in my understanding of God’s word, so I wanted to share that with them.

One of the things I feel is incredibly important is small groups with regular small group leaders. In the past we had small groups, but leaders rotated. I want regular leaders working with the same group of kids, so that it becomes discipleship not teaching. The size of our youth group warrants at least four small groups, so there is no way I can have close relationships with all the teens, myself.

One of the men on staff mentioned something about the group that I would be taking. I had to confess that I would not be taking a group. Immediately it occurred to him that my small group was in the room. And isn’t this a biblical model? Jesus called the twelve, but they were just twelve among seventy. And even amidst the twelve there were three which received more personal training. If we are going to have strong ministries, the leaders need to see spiritually feeding into their volunteer staff as being of first importance. It’s top down leadership.

A wise man once told me that a ministry leader, whether the pastor, the worship leader or any other leader, should be training up men to replace himself. What a blessing to the teens of my church and community if I had a volunteer staff, any of which could step directly into my shoes without further training.

I’ve become convicted that having a staff meeting is critical to the functioning of the group as a whole. My hope and prayer is that holding regular staff meetings will unify all of the leadership from Sunday School teachers to small group leaders. And I believe it will result in a leadership team that’s ready to take on more of the challenges of ministry.

As I write this, my prayer for your ministry is that God would raise up leaders and equip you to train them, that your ministry would grow both in number and in devotion to Christ.

Most of us don’t know anything different, so it can seem odd that we ask the question, ‘Why do youth ministry?’, but there is a distinct sense in which answering this question will effect the way we look at youth ministry and, indeed, in the way we serve in youth ministry.

The technical term for teen or youth is ‘adolescent’. The term comes from the Latin adolescere, the verb for ‘growing up’. In contemporary times, most agree that adolescence occurs roughly during the teen years; it is marked by chemical changes in the body, beginning at puberty and ending when entering a new phase of life, young adulthood, around 19. Modern psychologists also go so far as to mark a post-adolescent phase of young adulthood from about 20-40.

Classically, there was no distinction made for teens and certainly not for young adults. When a child was physically able to work and mentally able to make intelligent decisions, they were considered a man or a woman. Certainly younger men and women did not command the respect that older men and women did, but there was no distinction made as to their phase of life.

As psychology progressed, chemical changes and later, brain function changes, began to effect that way that our society viewed the teen years. It began institutionally as government, schools and intellectual circles recognized the distinction. Eventually, however, the teens themselves began to recognize themselves as being adolescent. So, teens have been displaced socially and personally. They are able to make conscious moral decisions, yet are not held responsible for such.

This has incredible ministry implications. Many churches simply do not have youth ministries. There is severe stratification in how these churches handle the adolescent years, all of which cater to the church’s observation of the non-necessity of the distinction and none of which cater to the needs of the individual from within their socio/cultural setting. Even though youth ministry may have been unnecessary at a time, we now find ourselves with a distinct group of people who identify with each other in such a way that they are set apart from all other groups in the church.

I believe it would be wrong to take a dogmatic approach to the situation in which we either try to convince our youth that they are adults or demand that they are simply children as this would clearly be challenged by the adults of the church as well as the teens themselves.

The foundation for this belief can be seen in the definition of ministry. Ministry in its simplest definition is ‘the administration of God’s grace.’ To do ministry is to administer God’s grace upon people, to go between God and man to bestow upon them the mercies of God. Traditionally this is done by the preaching of the word of truth, the Gospel, whether corporately or personally. Similarly, a minister is the vessel that goes between God and men to bestow upon them God’s mercies.  A ministry is a corporate environment where God’s grace is bestowed upon people by ministers of that grace.

There is a distinct sense in which the Gospel message is able to transcend all boundaries; where children and seniors can come together to hear the word of God and respond to it. But, as is evidenced by the churches distinguishing of other ministries (ie. Men’s Ministry, Children’s Ministry, etc.), there is a need in many circumstances to form a ministry to meet the needs of another certain group of people, that they would hear the truth more effectively.

In light of all that has been said, the following is the scriptural foundation for youth ministry:

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

(1 Corinthians 9.19-23)

Paul seems to be suggesting a model of ministry in which we cater to social stratification. Where society creates a distinction, whether that is a cultural distinction, a gender distinction or an age distinction, we create a ministry with the specific intent of preaching the gospel from within those social strata. Here are a few other observations:

1. Paul recognizes his freedom. He understands that this is not the only model for ministry, but he clearly believes it is the best. I would not criticize a church or an individual for taking a different view.
2. Paul believes that this method for ministry will yield a better result. He wants as many people to get saved as possible. If changing his own traditions and practices to become like another will result in a clearer presentation of gospel truth, then it is worth every ounce of effort.
3. Paul does this so that he might ‘share with them in its [the gospel’s] blessings’. In other words, he is confident that this model of ministry—one in which we cater to social stratification—is the most fruitful model of ministry.

In conclusion, whether it is right or wrong that society has birthed this concept of adolescence, I cannot say for certain. But, it is easily observed that a distinction has been made. We, as the church, have the freedom to operate a youth ministry, or not, but we must realize that recognition of the need for youth ministry will most certainly result in kingdom fruit.

On a side-note, I believe that our society has also warranted need for young adult ministries, specifically young singles (college/career) and young married couples.

I got this email a couple days ago and was waiting to respond until I had the time to respond well. This young man is dealing with a situation that reflects many teens today.

Ryan from Oregon asks:

I’m turning 13 Feb. 19 and I’ve been a Christian all my life. My parents raised me going to church. My mom plays the piano at church. I love God and pray a lot, but I feel like I’m just stuck in a black hole of sin. I always fight with my brothers and sometimes cuss to be cool. There are other things I’ve done that I regret. Can I have some words of wisdom or just a little advice on being more happy and staying on the right path with God?

In most Christian churches today, our children are being taught moralism; they are taught that life is about right and wrong. This creates an unnatural focus on sin. We sin as everything ‘bad’ we do. But, sin is bigger than that. Sin is anything which works against God’s purposes for us.

Think about it this way: God created Adam and Eve. Why? He wanted to have communion with them. He wanted to live among them. He wanted to get to know them and He wanted them to get to know Him. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, the communion between Adam and Eve and God was broken because the trust was broken. Ever since Adam and Eve, all mankind has been born ‘broken’ and we do not have communion or relationship with God.

God wants to restore that broken relationship. That’s why Jesus died on the cross; so that the death that we should experience due to our lack of communion with God would be placed on Him and we can commune with God.

How does this knowledge help the problem?

Well, Adam and Eve’s sin worked against God’s purposes. It wasn’t that God was mad because they disobeyed (that’s moralism), instead God was grieved because their disobedience broke their relationship. We have to understand that God is grieved over sin.

When Ryan cusses and fights with His brothers, God doesn’t roll His eyes and exclaim, “Here we go again!” Instead, he grieves over the breaking of the relationship that Ryan has with Him.

In light of this revelation, let’s look at three areas of Ryan’s story.

1. We can all relate to the ‘black hole of sin’ that haunts us. Sometimes we become so deep in sin that it is easier to sin than to face reality. What we need to realize is that God wants nothing more than to save us from the black hole. He wants to restore us. If you want to get out of the black hole, you need to do three things and be committed to them. 1) Ask God daily for deliverance. Tell Him that you hate your sin as He does and you want to be restored to a right relationship. Confess your sins by name (ie. forgive me for hitting my brother Jimmy). 2) Read the Word. Most 13 year olds are not avid Bible readers. Read one chapter of the Gospel of John every day, asking yourself about the things that Jesus is doing in the stories. 3) Accountability. Find an older boy in the youth group or a man who you trust. Confess your sins to him and ask him to pray for you and hold you accountable to your sins.
2. The second area is regret. We certainly are not happy that we have sin in our past, but we all do. God does not want us to focus on our past sins. Instead, he wants us to focus on our future obedience. Our past sins don’t ruin our current relationship. Those sins have been forgiven.
3. Finally, happiness. I don’t think happiness is a good goal to have. Happiness comes in moments at baseball games and times telling jokes with friends. This is great, but it’s momentary. What we need is joy and satisfaction. These come only from honestly living your life to honor God and to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. As we do this, God blesses us with joy and through His Spirit allows us to find satisfaction in our efforts.

I hope this can be an encouragement for others dealing with the same situations and to other youth workers, like myself, who have teens struggling with the same issues. God bless you as you pursue a life lived for the glory of God.