3 1/2 Successes as a Christian Teenager

Let's Go Comets!

I listed 3 of my failures as a Christian teenager in my last post.  Click Here to read that post if you have not read it already.  As I stated in that post I am sure that I failed in many other ways, and I may revisit that topic some other time.  For now I would like to move in a more positive direction and look at 3 and a half ways that I succeeded as a Christian teenager.

Please know that my intent is not to glorify myself or say, "Look at how awesome I am!", because I am sure that my failures out-weigh my adolescent successes.  I am not always sure how God works in our lives, but I have to believe that He was doing something pretty awesome with me as I was trudging through the mire of teenage life.  I have found that God is constantly wanting to do something great with us, but our lives are often clouded by our own ambitions and selfishness.  There are moments when breakthroughs happen.  Moments when we realize that God is in control and we are not.  The following is a list of some of those moments.  We will start with the "half" mentioned in the title.

Moment number 1/2 - Beginning a Journey
     This is my 1/2 because technically I was not a teenager, but this 1/2 is definitely the most important step.  I first recognized Jesus as my Savior when I was 6 years old.  This was the beginning of my journey.  There were so many things I did not understand.  I did not know it was a journey.  I did not know that there would be pitfalls and snares along the way.  I did not know Philippians 2:12.  It may have been a slow start but I strapped on my helmet, picked up my walking staff, and walked out the door.

Moment number 1 - Finding the Importance of Community
     As you may know, I grew up in the church.  My dad was a pastor for some of my time growing up and we went to church every time the doors were open.  I even remember a time that we went to church one Sunday morning where my dad was the pastor and no one showed up.  We continued to have church time anyway.  We sang a song or two and dad preached to me, my mom, my brother, and my sister.

     There comes a time when a Christian must realize that Church is not at a specific time, is not at a specific place, or does not have a specific order of service.  Church is a community of people worshiping and growing together in Christ.  Church is the body of Christ doing life and ministry together.  Please do not misunderstand me here.  I have heard many people say, "Well, I don't need to attend a church because I hang out with Christians all the time."  Church is not just hanging out.  It is a family gathering for the purpose of strengthening each other and urging each other along in their Christ journey.  Hebrews 10:24-25 comes to mind.

     I realized all of this, though not perfectly, when I was a teenager.  Even in my most sinful moments I felt like I needed a Christian community and that it took precedence over all other activities.  When I got my driver's license there was a time when my parents stopped attending church for a while and I continued to drive myself to church on Wednesdays and Sundays.  I cannot explain my motivation in doing and thinking all of this except that I have to believe the Holy Spirit was strongly involved.

Moment number 2 - Surrendering Fully
     Later in my 17th year of life I attended a youth service where I was faced with a decision.  I had been thinking for a while about my life in relation to Jesus' call and there was a certain tug at my heart during that youth service.  I do not remember exactly what the preacher spoke about, but I remember struggling with what it REALLY meant to be a Christian.  Did it mean that I would just go on with my life and be happy with Jesus saving me or did it mean that I surrender my life and actually make Jesus my Lord?  I could not remember anywhere in the Bible where Jesus called us to "just be saved", but everywhere I saw Jesus calling us to surrender.  Matthew 16:24 is pretty clear on this topic.  I often call this moment in my life being born again... again.

Moment number 3 - Deciding to Serve
     After trudging along in my journey, falling countless times, failing miserably, and starting over a lot, I made a decision to go into the ministry.  I am now convinced that every Christian is called into the ministry in some way or another and that they need to be intentional about it.  I guess I was trying to be intentional about it in my decision.  I did not know where this decision would take me, but my pastor mentored me gently and gave me opportunities to put my decision into action.  Although it was stressful and poorly executed I preached multiple times to my home congregation before I left for college.

Conclusion
     I truly believe that all of these moments were times when the Holy Spirit broke through my defenses and did some mighty work.  If I could do it all over again with what I know now, I would have attempted to let my defenses down more often.  The defenses we tend to build up the most are the things that are noisy and busy.  The busy-ness and noisy-ness of life is caused by our selfishness and it will build up a wall that the Holy Spirit will often not intrude upon.  We will also find that there is a steady knocking coming from the other side of the wall.  He is there, steadily attempting communication.

3 ways I FAILED as a Christian Teenager

Me As A Teenager
I guess one failure could have been my hairstyle.
And look at that neck!

     I grew up in the church.  I was a PK (Preacher's Kid).  I've heard all of the stories of what that means,
and whether you have heard them or not, it probably doesn't matter.  The basics of it is, I should have known better.  There are too many failures to actually list here, so I'm only going to list 3 that have risen to the top.

Failure #1 - TALKING A LOT ABOUT THE BIBLE BUT NEVER READING IT
     Yes, I had the answers!  I could quote at least 2 verses which included John 3:16 and John 11:35.  I knew the "ABC's" of the Christian faith (Admit, Believe, Confess) and I could tell you every "children's" story mentioned in the Bible.  The problem was that I had no idea what any of it really meant or how it truly fit into God's Story and His plan for His people.
     Every year at church camp I would recommit myself and start reading in Genesis.  I knew those first few verses "In the Beginning" pretty well.  I never made it out of that first book.  Sometimes, after much conviction and encouragement from Christian friends I would read a few verses from one of the Gospels.  On occasion I would also follow along with the pastor as he preached from the Word.  But that was it...
     The reason this is such a big failure is because I had made a commitment to the Almighty Creator of the Universe!  It wasn't a commitment to read the Bible, but it was a commitment to follow Him.  It's extremely hard to follow someone and do what they ask if you do not know that person or what they are asking.  I proudly walked my high school hallways as if I understood God, but I had no clue.  I mean, honestly, who has time to read that huge book when there are some Imps to slaughter in Final Fantasy on the Nintendo?

Failure #2 - LYING...  TO EVERYONE
     I was a big fat liar!  I mean really!  I lied about everything.  I don't know where I got it or why I did it, but looking back it seems I lived most of my adolescent years in a lie.  I lied to my parents about where I went on a date.  I lied to my teachers about about what happened to my homework.  I lied to my friends when telling them about what I did the weekend before.  What was I thinking?  Most of the lies really didn't mean much.  I wouldn't have been in trouble if I had told my parents the truth.  I wouldn't have been less popular if I had told my friends that I went skating instead of to the movies.
    The big problem with my lying was that I began to believe some of the stories I was spinning.  It became really confusing trying to keep all of those stories straight.
     The failure in lying was two fold for me.  First, lying is a sin.  There is no need to do it and it can only hurt us and those around us.  Second, instead of lying to make the cut among my family and friends, I could have been demonstrating Jesus among my family and friends.  And that leads me to my 3rd failure.

Failure #3 - LEADING PEOPLE AWAY FROM JESUS
     It took me a while to realize this, but when a person claims to be a follower of Jesus and boasts how great it is, lives like he's following the devil himself and demonstrates a mundane existence, then who would want that gospel?

     Author Brennan Manning said,

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

     I wonder with great anxiety how many of my friends will never get to spend eternity with their Creator because of what I said and how I acted.  

CONCLUSION

     I hope you have been enlightened by my confession time.  I pray that you will learn from my mistakes.  Sometimes it is best to not have to suffer through your own failures when you can learn from someone else's.

Silence...

2 years ago I signed up on Blogger and made one post.  Then silence.  I was excited about that post.  Many people read that post.  I just finished rereading it and it was pretty good.  But then there was silence...


This seems to be the story of my life.  I get excited about a project and rarely see it through, or I have a major desire to do something and other things fill my time instead.  For some reason, 2 years ago I named this blog "A Noble Life" and now I am curious why I chose that name.  I am a person with the name Noble, but I would have to admit that I am not a very Noble person.  Silence...


I pray about this.  I spend time asking Jesus to help me to live up to my name.  Sometimes I am brave. Sometimes I am honorable.  Sometimes I look out for others instead of myself.  Sometimes... Silence...


What is your name?  What is your life like?  Do you live up to your name?  Are you fulfilling all that God has planned for you?  Have you ever encountered the silence?


I have a feeling that there is something in the silence that I have been missing.  Or, at least there is something happening that I forget to remember.  See, in the silence, in between those exciting moments and unfinished projects, there is something that is pretty sweet.  There is family.  There is my 9 year old boy, Jeremiah and my 2 year old girl, Ezra.  There is my beautiful and lovely wife, Sara.  In the silence there are numerous friends, mentors, activities, and things that are not so silent.  In fact, the silence can get pretty loud.  It screams for attention, care, and love.  


I've heard that God speaks in the silence...  Are you listening?

"For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him."  Ps. 62:5

After Camp/Missions

Today marks the first Wednesday after two weeks of traveling with the Youth of FBC Rolla.  It all started back on July 6th.  I loaded up the bus with 14 students and 3 other adults and headed to Texas.  After a nights stay in Corsicana, TX we continued our journey to Houston First Baptist Church.  This was our second year participating in the Houston Project and it was a great success.  The people at Houston First gave us a lot to think about when it comes to reaching our world for Jesus Christ.  On top of all the training, we also had the opportunity to serve the community by picking up trash, working in community gardens, and recycling mattresses.  Our upperclassmen also had the opportunity to take a bus tour that enlightened them in the subject of human trafficking and modern slavery.

The students of FBC Rolla left Houston with a new vision for the world around us and a passion for serving and reaching others for Jesus Christ.  A huge highlight to our trip was the fact that one of our students, Eireena, accepted Jesus as her King during the week.  WooHoo!!!

We packed up our things on July 12th and headed back.  We stopped in Muskogee, OK to spend the night at Grandview Baptist Church and was welcomed with open arms by some great people.  We even had the chance to get up early the next morning and hit the Disc Golf course before we left.  We returned to Rolla around 4:00pm on the 13th and I began shifting my focus from Mission Trip to Church Camp.

On July 14th I gathered a group of guys, loaded up the church van with sound equipment, and headed out to the PCBA Church Camp.  We set up the sound system and ran through a couple of songs so that we would be ready for a week of worship.

On the 15th camp began.  This year, our theme was PCBA vs. Zombies!  We used the passage in Ephesians 2 as our theme verse, "Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved."
There was an extreme spiritual battle going on this year at camp.  For the first couple nights, the students at camp were passionless and quite frankly, dead.  The speaker, Chuck Miller, was awesome.  He was hilarious, intelligent, and inspirational, but our students would not respond in any way to his talks.  Worship was halfway accepted, but you could see a real spiritual wall built up between the students and Christ.  After much prayer and discussion by the leaders, the wall came tumbling down by the third night.  The camp was brought back to life in a way that has never been seen at PCBA camp before.  Students flooded the alter and spent a lot of time in prayer for each other.  (Even spending an extra hour at the alter after everyone else was dismissed.)  Many students committed to giving 100% of their lives to Jesus this past week.
After two weeks of working tirelessly with teenagers and seeing some amazing "God Stuff" happen I have one major question.

What now?

We all know the story.  Youth lives life.  Youth goes to camp or on mission.  Youth gets excited about Jesus.  Youth goes home.  Youth resumes life like before.  Youth loses excitement.

We tend to put all the responsibility of keep their faith alive onto the teenager.  We pump them up at camp and then tell them not to fall away and to remember the joys of being close with Christ.

I would like to issue the challenge that it is not only the responsibility of the teenager to keep their faith alive. It is also OUR responsibility to disciple them.  It is OUR responsibility to mentor our students.  It is OUR responsibility to love and guide our teenagers.

So I ask again...

What now?