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277 | Anchored Faith: Standing Firm in a Shifting World | SMC Podcast · Student Ministry Conversations

• speaker-0: Hey and welcome back to the podcast. We are in week four of October. and so we have been talking about the idea of anchored faith. and honestly, I think this has been one that is really, really good. And we kind of I think October is the one of the better months. I mean, realistically, if I had to put this anywhere, it'd probably be October or it'd be probably middle of March. Because it's like the that's that's it seems like the juggernaut of busyness is in those times. and so especially when it comes to school, October, you're you're working on like the ending of the second six weeks of school typically. You're right in the mix of all the fall sports, you're starting some of the winter sports, you're involved in all the theater things. Like my son has one act theater and like this week and next week. he's had tennis, he's had all the things going on, not to mention grades are getting harder, grades are getting due, and so there's a lot of stress and anxiety and chaos. And I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but they also do like this thing called elections for adults during this time. And that doesn't add any stress at all. I am tired of getting texts and emails and postcards sent to my house. but that's a different story. So with that though. The idea of October being hectic and crazy is very, very much something that we can all get behind. And so we have been talking about this idea of, you know, October seems to be this month where things start shaking, where foundations start shaking, where we are super, super busy, where we might be so busy that we start to forget what holds our foundation. and so the idea is to not teach students to avoid uncertainty. it is to help. form students whose faith is deep enough to remain rooted when uncertainty inevitably comes. Because it is going to happen. And it's not we're teaching students how to avoid uncertainty. We're teaching them how to handle uncertainty because it is a part of all of our lives. And so with that we talked about a faith that lasts in week one. We talked about the idea that roots matter. and we talked about the importance of building up those roots. Secondly, we talked about how faith needs to be in the presence of dealing with fear, and how faith is vital when it comes to the idea of trusting God in the midst of fearful situations. and how teaching students how to do that. Last week we talked about when doubt shows up and we talked about the idea where a student says, I'm not sure I believe this anymore. What do you do? You embrace it, you push the student through that doubt, you help them seek and ask questions. and then ultimately, hopefully, they find the presence of God in the middle of that doubt. and presence of question doesn't necessarily mean that it's an absence of faith. sometimes it's just where deeper faith begins. they have to answer the questions that have been plaguing them for the ideas hopefully to stick. And so we talked about that last week. And this week for week four, we are talking about the idea of standing firm in a shifting world. And so basically just kind of building this idea of conviction without fear or isolation. And so students are growing up in a culture where like competing voices are telling them everything and it's honestly getting worse and worse and worse. they they don't know what to think anymore. they have friends that are telling them, they have social media that's telling them, they have teachers that are getting to the point to where they're telling them what to think and what to believe. in challenging their current beliefs. we have different families that are challenging different beliefs. We have different political ideologies that are challenging beliefs. There's so many things out there. and it's really, really getting to be a problem. And so they're all telling them what to believe, what to value, what to celebrate, what to reject, what to cancel, and what to become. And our response can't just be simply teaching them to fear the world around them. Or to absorb everything that it tells them to do. So we're going to talk about the idea that standing firm doesn't require students to be angry at the world, it requires them to become deeply rooted in Jesus. And so, you know, we have to be like we have to start with the idea, David, that like our students are being discipled constantly. Like it doesn't matter who. Everybody is doing it. They're being discipled by us, by parents, by friends, by teachers, by entertainment, by social media, by algorithms, by influencers, by whatever happens to appear on their feed when they're home alone. Everyone is telling them a story about what makes a good life. and that what makes someone valuable, what love means, what freedom means, what truth means, what identity means, success. And realistically, we're in a losing battle because we get a few hours a week, and every other hour of the week is influenced by other things. And right now, especially in American culture, and this is probably true overseas too. where it's allowed, the s the the cell phone is the influence. What you do on a cell phone, because in all reality, they're spending more time on their phones than they are with us. They're spending more time with their phones than they are with their parents and their families. Because with sports and school and everything else, even families probably at night are only getting a probably two to three hours a night. And most students are spending somewhere between four and ten hours on a day on their phone. So like I mean it's it's a very, very losing battle, so we can't panic. I mean, we can't build a bunker and just put students in there. Like, that's not gonna be and like we can't spiritually build a bunker either, because we can't teach students to fear the world around them. We need to teach them clarity and conviction for walking through the world that they're in so they can handle it with a level head, a discerning spirit, and a clear heart. and so like I don't know, David, I I feel I feel like Yeah, I mean and we kinda talked about this in the beginning, is just this idea of, you know, like more than anything, it's not it's not about what they're watching, it's who they need to be emulating. It's it's Jesus. And then like so how do we form students who know Jesus deeply enough to live faithfully in it? speaker-1: think it's as simple as it sounds, it's just walking with them in it. You know, it we need to maximize the time that we do have. You know, you you'd mentioned that we only get a few hours a week and the the honest reality is that we don't always even get that. You know, so many times with students we get a a short amount of time with them and then we may not see them again for a couple of weeks. Might be three weeks, four weeks, you know, th especially as that average attendance of an active person keeps Getting further and further distant. I mean, I've I've seen some statistics, I don't know how how realistic they are, because I didn't fact check it, but I've heard that there are people who call themselves very active in their church and they show up once every five to six weeks. Which growing up in our the way that we grew up, you miss more than two weeks and it's panic mode, like those those heathens, you know. and so it's it's a very different. world that we're we're discipling and so we really do have to maximize our time and you know Brent and I talk a lot about not spending too much time playing games and being you know intentional about when we play and different things like that and and I'll be honest my students absolutely come alive when it's game time they love it it's it's it has brought a lot of extra students like we did a nerf war this last Sunday night and it brought people here which was great but But that's only a small part. what we got to do. And honestly, it's like the least priority I put into it. But at the same time I'm also trying to reach the students where they are are and disciple them there. You know, and so it's like, hey, we're having fun, we're dis we're doing this thing, but how can I disciple along? How can I how can I show and so even with a with a moment like this Sunday that was intentionally built to be a fun event, I was looking for ways to disciple in it. And so I had a student a particular student that I've been I've been working with and and he had a really good idea for a way to make it really fair for everybody because you know everybody walks in like we had a pretty good amount of nerf counts but we also had some that walked in with kind of not the best and he was just kind of looking around he was like us High schoolers are going to decimate these these middle school students. And he was like, We gotta find a way to make this a little bit more fair. And he's the kind of guy that not too long ago would have been like, Who cares? We're gonna win. I don't give a crap. But he literally said, What if we laid all the all the weapons down on the ground, put a sticky note with a number, and then had everybody draw a number out of the hat, so it's fair for everyone. Everyone gets a shot at the best and you you take what you get and then we'll we'll redraw afterwards. I was like That's such a great job. That's such great thinking because I was like, such a great job. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. I was like, dude, that's awesome thinking. He's trying to make it fair for everyone. And he was leading. And so I said, Okay, here's what let's go set it up. And then I want you to explain what what you're doing and why you're doing it. And if anybody complains, I want you to help them understand like why this matters to you. And he goes, Okay. And so he got up there and he led it. He was like, Okay, guys, here's what we're gonna do and here's why. And and some were like awesome, because you could tell the ones that didn't have have the amazing ones are like, Yes, I have a shot at a better gun. And then the then some of the ones who who brought these, like they were super Excited about it, and they're like, Wait, I can't use mine. And he was like, You can use it in the next round, but for this first round, let's make it super fair for everybody. Everybody gets a fair shot at it. And he was explaining it and why he was like, he was like, Yeah, it's fun, but at the end of the day, this is you know, we're a church group, let's love each other. And that's really small. He didn't go into a full lesson, he didn't pull out scripture, but he was speaking. a universal truth of Jesus to love each other and to try to try to pursue fairness even in the midst where you're trying to to kill each other essentially and capture a flag. And it was like that what he was trying to do still was discipling some of these younger guys, whether they realized it or not. And we put in that position to be able to do so. And so what I'm saying is even in a moment where you're not intentionally preaching, you can still be discipling by giving students chances to lead and and giving giving them chances to show Christ's love through their actions. Because ultimately that's what we're trying to do in discipling. We're not always going to disciple people by saying, All right, open up your Bibles to Colossians three. Sometimes it's just simply having a conversation with somebody and instead of doing something selfish, we choose to try to make it fair. That's them living out their faith in real time. And that's a beautiful thing. So maximize even the even the times that aren't just specifically Bible or worship. and I think that's how we ultimately help these students come to a place where they're they're being formed in the little things, in the moments that seem inconsequential, so to speak. speaker-0: Yeah. Well, and I I think that goes back to the idea of, you know, like we have to prepare we're I mean we're not preparing students to escape the culture, we're preparing them to see through like see the culture through a different lens. and I think the mindset like you have to go back to John seventeen, where Jesus is talking and he's like praying for his disciples. Like, and that's that's kind of the idea that jumps and it's like John seventeen, fourteen, it says, I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not the of the world, just as I am not of the world. I am not praying that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified for the truth. And like You know, I mean I think I think that's the prayer of ministry is just like, you know, we're working on this dynamic of sending people out. It's like, I don't want them to escape the world. I want them to live confidently in it. Like and I I don't know. I I I I think theologically, like the whole in the world, not of it, is a great idea. I think that for you could probably throw some qualms at it theologically. but I think the idea is that it's like, you know, w we are teaching students to understand this idea that while they are fully invested in a part of this culture and world that they're in. They have to be the voice for it too. I watched a video on social media this morning and there was a guy just a guy in his car. He was like, you know, I keep hearing all these people talking about this idea about like how the world is getting dark and how like the world's getting darker and darker every day, and our culture is dark, and all this darkness is just kind of overwhelming and everything else. He's like, but Jesus said, You're the light. So shine. And it was just like, okay. Like, I see you. Like, and it's that mindset of like, you know, we can have that mentality of fear where it's like, well, the world's just gonna end, the world's terrible, we're just gonna like we're we're all gonna just it's just gonna be miserable. Like the world's too dark and everything else. And it's like, no, it's like we have we have a dark world because we have stopped shining. Or we have put a a shade over our light to allow us to be more palatable to the culture around us. And like so what we're doing is we need to be teaching, especially with this idea of, you know, standing firm in a shifting world, is the idea. Like we need to teach that they are the light of the world. What good is a light if you put a shade over it? And so like when we talk about this idea, like we're not preparing students to escape culture, we're preparing them to faithfully follow Jesus within it. If the only way our students can remain faithful is by encountering compete never encountering competing ideas, we haven't prepared them for adulthood. So I think I think the conversation has to be, you know, what what is it? Is how do we move to conviction from reaction? We need to teach students the difference between conviction and reaction. Reaction says culture says this, so Christians must say the opposite. That's not necessarily biblical. It's not necessarily discernment either. biblical conviction. Asks what is God revealed? What does scripture teach? What does following Jesus require? And then we live from that foundation. Because if Christianity is constantly defined by whatever we're against, then culture is setting our agenda. And like I I feel like that's the world that we live in now. It's like we have basically Christians that are just this idea of like, well, like we just have to be in opposition of the culture. So whatever the culture says, we're just gonna say we're not it for. It's like that's not what the Bible says at all. The Bible says follow Jesus, be firmly rooted and founded in Jesus, use discernment by God's word, by scripture, and then live in that foundation. We're doing it in reverse. Our students need a positive vision of Christian discipleship. So what are we for? Well, we're for truth. We're for love. We're for holiness, justice, mercy, faithfulness, compassion, human dignity, the kingdom of God. Most importantly, Jesus. Christian conviction isn't primarily about knowing what you're against. It's knowing who you're following. So I mean obviously David, there's a lot of a lot of things to kind of go with, but like, you know, I think more than anything, like how do we teach students to think biblically? And this was the conversation that came up in my seminary class last night. Is like, you know, he said, you know, one of the most unfortunate facts, and like this is dogging on my own denomination right now, said one of the most unfortunate facts of all of like my studies, and this was my professor talking. It was like as we came to the realization that Methodists by large are some of the least biblically founded in knowledge. And that's what's pulled us to where we are with the split and everything else. It's like biblical foundation and knowledge is not there. So how do we start teaching students to think biblically? speaker-1: Yeah. And I will say I have to agree with that, just in the sense of like when I look at the way that I grew up versus the way that my son is growing up, you know, take it however you want, but one thing that I really loved about growing up Southern Baptist is that we had a one of us programs that drilled biblical education. We drilled scripture knowledge. Now, I think we went to some some interesting ways to go about it. I mean, we made it very competitive, to the point of like practically bribing kids in the church I grew up in. and I I I I'm not really a big proponent of that. which it's funny to say that as the guy that won all the all the things, but they're bribing students and I'm the one winning everything. But speaker-0: One is in the key. speaker-1: I mean There's literally merit badges in Iwanos. And I went to Bible bowl and I won every single one of them. and as a kid, I remember wearing that like a badge of honor, like I was some something special because I knew the Bible. And it wasn't in a way that I felt like I was I was better than anybody else. I I really felt absolutely the opposite. Like I felt like for every time I'd win, I w win, you know, a Bible bowl or something, I was like, cool, I know the Bible. But do I really understand it? I know what it says, but do I understand it? And so I was constantly trying to push myself to know better and and I always felt like I was never good enough. And part of that is just my own s insecurities and stuff. But I'll tell you, we don't drill like that in this denomination, at least not from what I've seen in in our in our bubble. I'm not saying that Methodists in other places don't do the exact same thing. I don't know. But from, you know, kind of the West Texas region I am I am from, we don't see that. You know, and so I got convicted a few years ago. I decided, before my son was born, that I was going to one day give him my Bible. I didn't know if it was gonna be a boy or a girl. It was before we even knew we were pregnant. And I remember thinking, one day, I I wanna hand down my Bible to my kid when they turn eighteen. I wanna say, Hey, welcome to adulthood. This is the greatest book you'll ever have And so I was like, Cool, I'm gonna give him a Bible, but how much am I actually It's like cool he has a Bible, but I can literally just go buy him a Bible. Why is this Bible any more special than any other other Bible? And I started thinking about it. I'm a very digital person. Brendan will tell you. I don't write things down with a pen. I Everything is in my notes app. I have something like 1800 notes in my my phone. I'm constantly writing on my phone because it lives with me. I can't keep up. I'm too ADHD to keep up with a notepad. So I started looking through my Bible and I was like, I haven't underlined enough. I haven't highlighted enough. I haven't written in my Bible enough. And so I was like, I want to start writing as if I am discipling my son. And so as I read something, I start writing little notes. And I'm like, man, I'm out of out of space. So I start writing on sticky notes and some different things and bookmarks and stuff like that. I'm like, hey, I want you to when you read this, I want you to go go back to this part of the old testament and see what what it says here. And I want you to like put parallels and and then I'm asking questions and stuff like that as if I'm actually having a Bible study with my son. Because here's the truth. By the time my son turns 18, I may not be around. I'd like to think I will be. But who knows? I mean there's a million things that can happen in the next nine years. My wife, my sister, my dad, and my church all know that no matter what happens, my son gets this when he turns eighteen. He gets this Bible. It's yeah, it's All and I've gotten to a point now where I literally have notes in there that says, Noah, I want you to think about it this way. Noah, think about this. Ask this question. Ask a friend this. You know, different things like this, like depending on the scripture. And I I can't find one specifically off the top of my head because I don't want to go too much into it, but I I I know Actually I was in Exodus the other day. and I was and there's a part in Exodus chapter seventeen or eighteen where Moses is the Israelites are at battle with the Amaleks and I think it's the Amaleks and and God instructs him to hold his staff up. And it's one of my favorite favorite passages in the Old Testament where he's holding his staff up, and as long as his staff is in the air, Israel prevailed. But if he puts his arms down, and of course he gets tired. It's a long battle. He's gotta do this. And so literally his his friends, his people get a rock for him to sit down on, and then they literally hold his arms up and help him hold it up because Because I realize like we will die if if his arms come down. And so I literally put in there, Noah, who's holding you up? Who are the people in your life that are going to keep you moving in life? And and and then I put another note that said, please don't be afraid to ask for help. That has been my downfall in my life. Why? Because I hope one day he's just reading through this and he sees that and he goes, man, that's important. You know, little things. If this is supposed to be a life playbook, my hope is that one day he's gonna read through this and go, Okay, all the time, like, especially if I'm not around to be able to disciple him. You know, that's one of the things I think about a lot is like, if if I'm not around, at least he's gonna have this book that will disciple him better than I ever could anyway, but he's also gonna have some things that I've learned along the way. How can how can you intentionally disciple? Do that. speaker-0: Yeah. Well and I I definitely think that there's some great dynamics when it comes to that, just on the ideas of you know, we have we have those opportunities to especially with our own kids, but like eventually students will come and encounter something that like you didn't have a lesson over. And so I like I I think that's important and I think sp building opportunities for dis like discipleship questions like that. Of like, you know, who who's holding you, who's supporting you, stuff like that is good. but like it's guaranteed that they're gonna come across something that you don't teach them. Like, and so with that, like technology is gonna continue to change, culture is gonna continue to change, and the questions that come with that, circumstances are gonna change. They might grow up in a completely different circum or they might have an adulthood in a completely different circumstance than you raise them. so The thing is, is if discipleship only gives students a list of like Christians believe this about this, we haven't done our job well. And so asking questions that are more discipleship and bib biblically based is important because we need to teach them how to think, not how to react. Okay. speaker-1: I'm literally writing a book on that right now. speaker-0: And we we need to teach them to think and not to react. And I think especially in our culture today, and like this is a struggle that I'm having with my h my four almost fourteen year old, he reacts to everything. He reacts to critiques, he reacts to discipline, he reacts to friends, he reacts to how he does in video games. Nothing is ever thought, it's all reactions. And so like just teaching this idea of how to think, especially biblically, is super, super important because we need to be teaching them what does scripture say? But then we need to be training them to go find it. What biblical principles apply in this? What does this tell me about God? What does scripture say about humanity? What assumptions are being made? What desires are being appealed to? What would faithfulness to Jesus actually look like? That's wisdom. And wisdom travels. And I so I I don't know if I mentioned this in conversation with David or on the podcast, but it I had a youth student that I had a conversation with, and one of the questions that I really like answering and there's really not a right or a wrong answer. But it it allows me a gaze into how they're thinking. Is I love asking the question, you know, on a scale of one to ten, where do you see your relationship with Jesus? And I don't give them any barriers other than zero, I just come for the fun of it. I really don't even know who Jesus is. And then ten is like, man, every waking moment of every w every day, every thought is held captive by my relationship with Jesus and my love for him. Which it really 10 is almost unattainable for most high school kids. And so I throw that out there because I want it to be as dangerously vague as possible because I want them to think. I don't want them to just tell me what number they think. and so they I had a student tell me, they were like, Well, I think I'd probably say my faith is like a seven. I have a great relationship with God. I spend time with him weekly. they were like, but you know, like I'm still. not perfect in this at all. and I I fall to sin and you know I struggle with different things and I said, that's great. What does a seven out of ten look like on your week to week? Can you answer that? What is having a faith that is a seven out of ten look like when you are fellowshipping with other people, when you are in school eight hours a day, when you're spending another two hours in practice after that, what does that seven out of ten look like to the people around you? And stuff like that challenges them to think biblically. Because then they are prompted and pushed to think, Hey, okay, well if I do say that I'm a seven out of ten in my faith. Am I doing that? Like am I living that out or is that just something that's in my head? And challenging them and equipping them to go on mission with that purpose is like what does a seven out of ten look like? At least in my mind, if you're past a five, you better be sp sharing the gospel. With your actions, with your words, with how you treat people, like that should be evident in everything. And so, like, challenging them with biblical thoughts and biblical understanding, asking them and making them wrestle with these things, but giving them guidelines to actually have the wrestling match with, like, that's wisdom. Wisdom travels. It works when students encounter questions that we never anticipated. So conviction doesn't require hostility either. And this is incredibly important for teenagers because the number of teenagers that I have conversations with that like just don't think they can be friends with people that don't agree with them. Like that's i and you talked about growing up, David. Like I I was friends with everybody growing up. Even the people that like were mean and rude to me. It's like, you know, it was just this idea of like like the the common courtesy of interaction was still a thing. and so students need to learn that they can disagree with someone without treating that person as an enemy. speaker-1: And that's very countercultural right now. I mean it's Brent has heard me say this a million times because it really is probably my biggest soapbox right now is is I am so tired of people saying like we have to you either agree with me wholeheartedly or you don't agree with me at all. And here's here's the truth, and you need to be telling your students this. Like, I'm not just saying this because this is my soapbox thing, but like I don't agree with me a hundred percent. How many times do I doubt my thoughts and my how many times do I mean we doubt ourselves sometimes we get it wrong we know that internally we know that externally but yet we're expecting other people to agree with us a hundred percent. You're either a hundred percent my ally or not. No, that's not possible. We're human beings. Like the only way for us to 100% agree with people is if we're robots and God didn't design us that way. So we've got to stop expecting people to agree with us 100% and just saying, hey, I'm gonna love you whether you agree with me or not. Because here's the thing there's one thing that we can agree on, at least on the surface of being a brother and sister in Christ, we can agree that Jesus died on the cross to save us of our sins. That alone gives us a basis. And if you don't have that, well, guess what? Jesus died for you too, even if you don't believe yet. Because here's the thing: our core value is you belong before you believe. So you may not believe that yet, but I want you to know about Jesus. I want to keep loving you. And and and and and I can at least agree that you're a human being worthy of being loved and cared about and having the at least basic needs. That gives us a foundation where we can build something. We gotta stop expecting people to just agree with us all the time. It's crazy. speaker-0: Yeah, I I heard Josh Howerton, the pastor in Dallas say he was like early like baby Christians, he was like, There's one thing you need to understand. He was like, This is the only absolute truth. He's like that you that you really need to grasp right now. He's like, if you read the Bible and you disagree, you're wrong. He was like, just understand the fact that like if you read something in the Bible and you're like, I'm not sure I agree with that, you're wrong. Like that he was like, Jesus' words are articulate, God's words are beautiful, he was like, there is absolute truth held in scripture. He said, So if you go to the point to where you disagree with scripture, you're wrong. He's like, no, he's like, just understand that idea, but like we need to understand that with that, students are not called to choose between truth and love. It's not two different hands. We are serving with both. So Christian maturity says that we should help students become people who can say, Hey, I believe this like deeply without the need to say I hate you because you don't. And that's something honestly that adults need to learn how to model more than kids do. Because kids are learning from adults. And right now, adults are terrible at this. Students are watching how we talk, how we disagree with people, how people how we talk about people who disagree with us. They're watching social media, they're listening to our jokes, they're hearing about how we describe people outside of church. We're constant if we're constantly angry, sarcastic, fearful, mocking, students will absorb that posture. If our convictions make us less like Jesus in the way that we treat people, then something has gone incredibly wrong with the way that we're carrying our convictions. So don't disciple students through fear. Fear is powerful, it can get attention, it can motivate behavior, it can create urgency. But fear is a terrible foundation for a durable discipleship. We shouldn't have to convince teenagers everything out there is coming for you. Like that's a terrible mindset. speaker-1: I grew up with that. speaker-0: That like we do not need to scare people to Jesus. We need to teach them that Jesus is the only reliable option. So rather than constantly telling students, look how bad everything is becoming, show them, look how beautiful faithfulness to Jesus is. speaker-1: Yeah. I I find myself like constantly going, We need something to anchor ourselves in an ever changing world where the rules are literally being tossed aside, changed, restructured and re vomited out on a daily basis. You need something that you can anchor yourself that is like true and stable and and unchanging and my mind always goes to Hebrews thirteen eight. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Like we need that kind of scripture that says Okay, in an ever changing world where the rules change, where the people change, where what I'm allowed to say and do is changing constantly and I am changing personally. I'm growing up and the things that I thought and felt when I was five like you know, two versus five versus ten versus fifteen and twenty and and beyond is changing constantly. I need something that I can anchor myself and say, This is absolute truth that is not changing. And to know that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday as he was today, or as he will be today, and as he will be forever, that's something you can you can anchor your faith to and go, Okay, everything else might change, everything else might fall apart, everything else may burn to the ground, but Jesus Jesus is is a strong foundation. It's a firm foundation for me. And I can anchor my faith there. I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know how it's gonna work out. I can be afraid. I can be anxious. I can be nervous, but I know that Jesus is this anchoring thing. Now, what does Jesus say? Jesus says, I got you. I'll provide. Trust me, obey me, and I will guide your path. Okay. You know, it it starts with just going, okay, what do I know? Jesus. Okay, what does Jesus say? How does Jesus say it? What does he want me to do? Then you can start sort of working your way out of the fear. That's how discipleship works. We I mean, when I think about how to define it, I love the way that John Mark Comer defines it in practicing the way. if you haven't read it, go read the book. but he said he simplifies discipleship to this. To Be a disciple of Jesus. First, you spend time with Jesus. As you spend time with Jesus, you become more like Jesus. As you become more like Jesus, you do the things that Jesus did. Spend time with him, become like him, do as Jesus did. And that's how we we That's how we become disciples. That's how our life begins to start to shape and make sense is is you know in those moments when when everything feels shaky and I don't understand where I'm supposed to be going, to be able to look at Jesus and say, Okay, Jesus Okay, I'm just gonna be still in his presence and I'm gonna let him him work with me. And as I start to let my rational thinking, as we talked about, teaching us to think, and I allow rational thinking to Take over my worries, my anxiety, my fear, whatever it might be. The noise, the noise starts to die down, and I start to think, what does Jesus say about this? How does Jesus want me to respond? What does Jesus want me to do? And I can go to scripture and I can say, Okay, Jesus has me. I don't have to worry, even the birds of the air have are are are fed. God's got me. He says that I can trust him. He says that I can obey him. He's gonna guide me. Okay. Now what do I do? Yeah. Okay. Now I'm thinking rationally. I'm calm. The fear isn't taking over. And now I'm I'm walking with Jesus. Sometimes it's take a deep breath, silence the noise, go back to what you know. speaker-0: Yeah, no, I mean and and that's it, that's it. I I have people tell me all or like I have people that get frustrated at me regularly. And I'm not saying I'm great at this by any means, but like one of the things that I've I've decided early on, like years ago, was just this idea of like, you know, anxiety and worry don't look good on me, so I don't do it. Or I do my best to not do it. And granted, everybody falls to it at some point, but like just this mindset of like, you know. How how beautiful is it to be the hands and feet of Jesus? Well like you have like you said just a second ago, you have to do what Jesus did. And like Paul and Jesus all throughout the New Testament say, Don't worry, don't be anxious, do not fear, do not worry, do not Okay, that's an easy step that I can take and say, look, at the end of the day, like this problem is not that big. And I I I heard it said one time, I can't remember who it's he's like, I've never met a problem bigger than God. Like and and I think that's the idea is like just this mindset of like you know at the end of the day Jesus is supreme, Jesus wins. If I have a great like pro like if I if I have a great turnout to an event, if I have a great conversation with a student, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, Jesus wins, Jesus is supreme, Jesus is in control, and like having that mindset of confidence and faith, like Going back to what I said earlier, we're we're not teaching them, look how bad everything is becoming. That's stemmed in fear. That's stemmed in anxiety and worry. Show them, look how beautiful it is to faithfully follow Jesus. You're calmer, you're more articulate, you like everything about you should be exuding some aspect of the fruit of the spirit. Now, granted, I believe we all have all of the fruits of the spirit. I do believe that some exude greater than others. we have we have bigger spiritual fruits and smaller spiritual fruits, if that makes sense. and so like there are some that naturally we will embody and do better with. and that's great. Like, but utilize those as like testaments and turning points in your life and fallback items of like you know, the peace of God. Like Philippians 4, 6 and 7 is the thing, like that is the verse in my life. Paul says, Don't be anxious about anything. Okay. I do my best to not be anxious about anything. Okay. You know, and if I am anxious, then I follow the rest of that verse. And I say, hey, look, you know, I'm gonna give that to God because I don't really have time to worry about it. Or I I can make time, but then what am I robbing time from when I'm sitting here wallowing in my worry and anxiety? So like I think everything is solvable, everything is doable. it might take some work, it might take some effort, but at the end of the day, there's nothing worth being worried or anxious about. And ev I mean, like one of the things that I hear all the time is like, Well, I'm just I'm I'm fearful of death. It's like why? Like, if you love Jesus, like why on earth For me to live as Christ dies gain, Philippians. Yeah, like I I mean y'all are y'all are like fearful and like running away like man, I like I I obviously I don't know the day that's happening, but I treat it as a count. Like to be in eternity with Jesus? Are you kidding me? Like to say that that dynamic is not going to be better than everything God has blessed me with in my life now? I mean it's not. It ain't gonna happen. And God's blessed me immensely in my life. And I'm aware of that and I'm thankful for that. But like n nothing has comparison to that day. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. You know, and it's an interesting thing. I actually polled our students in this and it was it was very interesting the the difference is like I'm trying to remember the question because this was over a year ago, but it was something something in the realm of if You had an opportunity. okay. I'll I'll just date this. I don't think it's it's correct, but it's close enough. Basically, like, do you feel like I I actually do remember it. Should we as Christians pray for more time to get people on the lifeboat, so to speak, or are we ready to go? Essentially. I mean it was it was more detailed and articulate than that. But essentially it's like, if God said it was time, do you feel ready or do you feel like you would be robbed? And what's funny is all the students were like, No, I'm not ready. I want more time. Should we pray for more time or are we ready to go kind of thing? And all the adults around the room was like I'm good. And it was like it was very kind of interesting in the sense that like, you know, when when we all kind of started asking our ourselves the questions like why do we why do we answer the way that we answer? And students were just like, But I have a whole life ahead of me. Like, yeah, if God says it's time, it's time. But like I wanna graduate. I want to go to college. I want to get married and have children and I have this whole future I've envisioned for myself. And as adults, we're living that. I already graduated high school. I already got to go to college. I already got to meet my wife and meet my kid and and though there are Still things that I want to do. If God says you're done, sweet, let's go. You know, like I'm ready to go. Like, and I it doesn't mean that I don't love my family or my church or my my life that I have, but if God says it's time, then you know I've I've lived a really good life. I've done a lot of really things, and I though I don't necessarily love everything, like I'm proud of the person that I've become and I'm proud of the job that I have and I'm proud of the the family that I've gotten to build and if God says that and it's time and I look him in in the eyes and he says, Well done, good and faithful servant, crap, dude, like I'm I I'm on top of the world here. Like this is incredible. But our students aren't there yet. They they want to experience the the fullness of what God can bless them with. And so it's it's something to remind us, I think it's an important thing for us to consider when we're discipling our students. Some of us might feel Brent and I might feel like, hey, if God says it's time, we're good. Our students aren't there yet. Why are we at the place in our faith where we can say, Okay, if it's time, it's time. It's because we've lived, we've experienced, we've been blessed to the fullness and and we've been Christians long enough that where we go, Man, let's be completely honest, as morbid as it sounds, we're the world that we live in, to the Christian, this is our hell. Yeah. This is the worst it's ever gonna get. And and and the eternity with heaven is so much better than anything this world can ever offer. We are comfortable with that because we've wrestled with it, we've lived with it, we've we've made peace with it, and some of our students aren't there yet. And so we have to reach them where they are. That's what discipleship is. It's spending time and and and pointing them to Jesus and getting them to a place where they can they can finally say the same thing about their faith that they feel so confident in their faith that they go whenever whatever and that's not just you know death but I mean to the point of going God I am totally bought in wherever you want me to go whatever you want me to do whoever you want me to be around whatever you want me to say I am yours no matter what that's what we're trying to build speaker-0: Sure. No, and I I think we have to give them a positive vision. Yeah. You know, we have to give them a life of love, a life of integrity, generosity, holiness, courage, service, a life shaped by the Holy Spirit. We're not simply trying to keep students from becoming something, we're helping them become someone. Someone increasingly hopefully like Jesus. And so, like, how do we do this practically? We create opportunities to discuss real cultural questions than rather than to avoid them. we teach students how to open scripture themselves. We ask questions before immediately providing answers. We expose students appropriately to different perspectives and teach them to evaluate ideas thor thoughtfully. Model disagreement without disrespect. We help students identify where their beliefs actually come from. And we ask, hey, why do you believe that? Not as an accusation, but as discipleship. And perhaps most importantly, we continually to bring like bring everything back to Jesus. Because Christianity Christianity, goodness words, isn't ultimately anchored in winning arguments. It's anchored in Jesus. Everything points back to Jesus. So, and this brings like the A culmination of the entire month. And I think honestly, looking at it, we have one more episode in this month. But like this is the culmination of this whole month is anchored faith. And I talked about this at the beginning. We talked about roots week one because because a faith without root roots will not survive storms. Week two, we talked about fear because students need to know how to trust God when they can't control what happens next. Week three, we talked about doubt because questions don't have to destroy faith when students have safe people who will help them pursue truth. And now we're talking about standing firm, not angry, not afraid, not isolated, anchored in faith. And that's what we want. Because culture will change, circumstances will change, friendships will change, students will graduate, they'll leave our ministries, they'll encounter questions we never discussed. They'll experience things that we couldn't prepare them for. And eventually they won't be able to walk into our youth r youth groups and ask, hey, what do you think I should do? Which means our ultimate goal cannot get students to depend on our answers. We have to teach them to know Jesus. We have to teach them to know Scripture, to pray, to discern, to learn the value of Christian community, to recognize truth, to practice wisdom, to trust God, to stand firm, because we are not the anchor Jesus is. And there are so many youth ministries and so many churches out there that like live and breathe by the pastor's words. But that's not the goal. And that's hopefully the beautiful thing about this entire conversation is we're not promising students that life won't shake. We're guaranteeing it will. We're helping them that discover that when it does, Christ still holds. Our job isn't to make sure that nothing ever shakes with our students, it is to anchor them to the one who remains when everything else does shake. So That's all we have for today. But as always, thank you for listening. thank you for being a part of the podcast. If you have ideas or questions or thoughts or comments, whatever, we would love to hear from you. You can reach out to us at Talk Student Men. and that is how we primarily do most of our conversations. You also can look at send us an email podcast at student ministry conversations.org. We'd love to hear from you. Secondly, We would love to reach more people with our podcast. And so if you find this encouraging or insightful, we would love for you to share this with your youth pastor friends because that is our goal is to inspire, equip, and encourage youth pastors to be better in the churches they are serving in. And so part that's that's our goal from day one. That's what we've wanted to do. And we can't do that well unless we reach out to more. and so with that, please, please, please do. do us a solid and share this with your youth pastor friends. or quite honestly, share it with anybody. We have pastors that listen to this. We have children's pastors that listen to this. We have people that don't even work in churches that listen to this podcast, which is super cool. I've always been kind of mind blown by that one. but it's just the idea that like if if this is valuable to you, we would either love to hear it our set like love to hear it from you, or we would love for you to share this podcast with other people because we see value in what we're doing and hopefully you do too. and then secondly, we have a website, smcpodcast.riverside.com. You can find all of our episodes on there. Obviously you can do it on Spotify and Apple and YouTube and all those things too. But all of our episodes, all of our show notes, all of everything that we have is on there. We also have a newsletter on there. And so we put out a newsletter every single episode that goes with it as kind of like an extra like a a double dip, so to speak. and so with that, we have a newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter by putting your email in on our website. Or if you don't want another email in your inbox and you just want to check it out, you can go to smcpodcast.riverside dot com, click the newsletter tab, and you can find a newsletter for every single episode. We've done it for about 10 now ish. and so that's one of the newer things that we've done. and we're gonna continue on doing it because yeah, it's just an extra addition to what we're doing. but yeah, and then also just man, we we thank you, we we love you guys. keep doing what you're doing as we've been doing for a while now. We'll close in prayer and then you guys hopefully have a great ministry time and a great week serving the students that you're in charge of. Pray with us. God, we thank you that you are faithful. When everything around us feels uncertain. Help us build ministries that form students deeply rather than simply producing moments. Teach us to help students trust you when they're afraid, seek you when they doubt, and remain faithful when the world around them changes. Give us wisdom as leaders. Keep us from discipling through fear. Keep us from giving shallow answers to difficult questions. Help us model conviction with compassion, truth with love, and courage with humility. And as the students you've entrusted us to grow, graduate, and eventually leave our ministries, may their faith never be ultimately dependent on us. Allow us to point them to you and allow them to root deeply within you. So whatever comes next, they know where their hope is found. We just pray for the youth pastors that are listening to this. God, I just pray that you give them wisdom and discernment. I pray that you give them patience, an extra dose of just joy and gratitude for what they get to do. and God, as as students are on our hearts regularly, I pray for the students that are in our ministries. God, just allow us to love on them like you love us. and use that as a reminder of how much you love us too. we just pray. That you will be glorified in all things that we do. we pray for this time together and God, we just pray that we continue to see fruit from this. we pray that student pastors are inspired, encouraged, and equipped to be better leaders within their communities. and God, ultimately we give you all the glory. We thank you and we love you. Amen.