Month: August 2015

Leading Kids to Jesus

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
           This is the real New Year for both school and church.  As kids start back to classes, churches across the country are all gearing up for their Fall ministries.  When it comes to the Christian education of children, church teachers have a responsibility that is more than following a curriculum; they have a wonderful opportunity to lead their students to Jesus.
 
Every person’s spiritual journey is unique, including children.  Every teacher’s relationship with his/her kids is different.  There is no “how-to” formula that can replace the leading of God’s Spirit in our own hearts as we prayerfully seek to follow God by leading children to Jesus.  Through all the things teachers do in the classroom, we are seeking to bring kids into a living, growing relationship with Jesus Christ, while continually recognizing that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to convict and convince a child to respond to the gospel. 
 
As we look for ways to lead kids to Jesus Christ there are few pitfalls we need to avoid.  One pitfall is that we can manipulate kids to make a commitment they are not yet ready to make.  For example, younger kids are eager to please their teachers.  We need to ensure that children understand what they are doing so that it is not a meaningless commitment.  The second pitfall, on the other hand, is to ignore clear signs of a child’s desire to express a commitment to Jesus.  We need to avoid missing a God-given opportunity to direct a child to an age-appropriate avenue of faith in Christ.
 
The best ways to be assertive in bringing children to Jesus are to:  pray for them; present the gospel in forms they can understand and respond to; answer their questions; make sure they understand the content of the gospel; allow them to express their desire to be a Christian; help them to pray; and, follow up with them.  For older kids, asking questions is helpful and effective:  Why do you think Jesus wants to be your Savior and Lord?  How can that happen?  What do you like about Jesus?  Do you want to give your life to Jesus and follow him?
 
It is exciting to have a spiritually sensitive child desire to follow Jesus.  When a child comes to a point in which the Holy Spirit is truly working within them, pray with the child, inviting him/her to pray.  Offer to help if they need it with a simple prayer like this:  Dear Jesus, thank you for loving me.  I know that I disobey you and do wrong things.  I am sorry for my sins.  I know that God loves me and forgives my sins.  I want to love you more.  Amen.  Encourage older kids to write out a simple prayer so that they can think about it before praying with them.
 
As a church teacher one of the great things about leading a child to Jesus is that you are already an important person in that child’s life.  Thus, you are in a significant and strategic position to point the child toward growth in Christ.   You have an established relationship in order to help the child understand that a lifelong walk with Jesus will have ups and downs, but that Jesus will always be there.
 

 

      If you are already a teacher or leader of kids within a local church, then think intentionally and prayerfully about your role and influence for this coming educational year when it comes to leading children to Jesus Christ.  If you are not in an actual position to teach or lead, maybe God is speaking to you about stepping up to be a teacher in your church; or, perhaps God wants you to come alongside certain children or teens in order to speak into their lives with grace, love, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Whatever role God is leading you toward, take heart that the majority of Christians today were influenced in some vital manner through a faithful Sunday School teacher, a caring youth leader, or an attentive lay person who desired to see a child know Jesus.

John 15:18-25

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Jesus suffered as a man on this earth.  He was persecuted.  He was hated.  He was killed.  Although we readily recognize these facts as believers, somehow we still seem surprised when we follow Jesus that there are people who downright dislike us.  Jesus clearly said, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”  Emotional, psychological, verbal, and even physical abuse can and does occur against God’s people who seek to walk in the ways of Jesus.  There was a time in the first few centuries of the church that becoming a martyr for one’s faith was welcomed as living into the imitation of Jesus Christ.  Even many modern day martyrs for Jesus around the globe have counted it a privilege to suffer as Jesus did.
 
            This all sounds quite strange to Westerners who tend toward the notion that if we do everything with excellence and effectiveness that there will be no reason to be persecuted or to suffer.  But the reality is that Jesus promised that in following him, there will be those who seethe with hatred toward us.  We are not above our Master.  If he suffered, we will, as well.
 
            Thomas a Kempis, writing over five-hundred years ago to clergy students, captured the essence of Jesus when he said:  “Sometimes it is to our advantage to endure misfortunes and adversities, for they make us enter into our inner selves and acknowledge that we are in a place of exile and that we ought not to rely on anything in this world.  And sometimes it is good for us to suffer contradictions and know that there are those who think ill and badly of us, even though we do our best and act with every good intention.  Such occasions are aids in keeping us humble and shield us from pride.  When people ridicule and belittle us, we should turn to God, who sees our innermost thoughts, and seek his judgment.”
            Almighty God, thank you for sending your Son, the Lord Jesus, on my behalf.  Just as he suffered for me, I willingly suffer for him, since his infinite grace has delivered me from sin, death, and hell.  I only ask to be found faithful at the end of the age when he returns to judge the living and the dead.  Amen.

Psalm 11

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            God is quite serious about people living in such a way that is righteous, that is, in right relationship with others.  He does not tolerate the wicked – those who only have regard for themselves and violate others with hateful speech and actions.  At the core of God’s very being, he “hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.”  We are to be righteous because God is righteous; we are to hate wickedness because God hates it.
 
            Anytime we talk about wickedness and righteousness, it typically is in the context of others who are violent and we who are not.  This is, at best, misguided, and, at worst, flat-out a self-deception.  It is easy to observe violence in others while ignoring our own part in wickedness.  We rarely equate violence with our words, but the sheer fact is that our tongues are prone to violent speech.  Whenever we seek to dominate a conversation; start an argument in order to win at all costs; put others down for their thoughts and ideas; engage in name-calling; or, speak against another behind his/her back; then we have come under the judgment of the God who abhors every form of violence.
 
            We often feel justified in our violent speech because of our supposed pure motives.  But this disregards the mental activity that takes place in our heads before we speak.  Too many people are prone to jumping to conclusions and thus misinterpret another’s words and actions.  If we would but stop and listen to ourselves, paying attention to the erroneous stories we can tell in an instant about others, then we would measure our words and seek to connect them with the righteous nature of God.  Righteous deeds spring from righteous thoughts based in truth. 
            Holy God, your perfect character and righteousness has always been and always will be.  Help me to connect so deeply with your goodness that my thoughts, words, and actions reflect your impeccable nature through Jesus Christ my Lord.  Amen.

Spiritual Warfare and Prayer

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
When I think of the Apostle Paul, the man who wrote most of the New Testament epistles, I think of a guy who had a bucket-load of boldness, a man who did not sidestep or try and step out of situations, but who fearlessly stepped into the world with the good news of God’s grace in Christ.  Maybe Paul was that way because of prayer and the prayers of God’s people (Ephesians 6:18-20).  Maybe what stands in the way of people coming to know Jesus and the church maturing in the faith is not a lack of resources or programming, but a profound lack of intense, consistent, and sustained prayer.  Maybe too many of God’s people have been duped by the enemy of our souls to retreat in a bubble of fear, unable to effectively engage God’s big world and Christ’s church with confidence.
 
            The truth is that there is an unseen world all around us that cannot be observed with our physical eyes.  We serve an invisible God, and we have an invisible enemy (Ephesians 6:10-12).  Satan and his wicked spirits actually exist and they are organized for war with schemes, methods, and devious strategies designed to blunt our spiritual development and the expansion of God’s kingdom.  The devil seeks to render us ineffective in our walk with Christ, be unproductive for God, and be all knotted up inside in a broken mess so that we are weak, not strong.
 
            The names of our invisible enemy in Scripture tells us the kind of diabolical and methodical work he is doing to snare us:  Satan, the adversary; Lucifer, the shining one who comes looking like the light but only delivers darkness; Beelzebub, the lord of the flies, who is a false god promising protection and help apart from the one true God; the evil one, who seeks to have us engage in sin instead of righteousness; the tempter; the accuser; and, the prince of this world.  The unseen wicked spirits of this dark world pull out whatever technique they can to turn us from knowing who we are in Christ and how we are to really live.  They seek to distract us from our mission, to keep us busy fighting among ourselves, and to put our confidence in anything (i.e. particular ministries; certain people; good ideas) but Jesus Christ.
 
Prayer is to undergird everything we do.  The early church was effective and successful in many ways through prayer.  They all joined together constantly in prayer(Acts 1:14).  They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42).  After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken.  And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly (Acts 4:31).  The early apostles re-arranged their busy schedules so that they could give their attention to prayer and the ministry of the word (Acts 6:4).  Everywhere we go in the book of Acts, believers in Jesus are praying.
 
            As Christians, we might think of ourselves as people of prayer, but compared to our spiritual ancestors we are not engaging in the same kind of intense, sustained, and strategic prayer that pushes back the enemy and graciously talks about the good news of forgiveness in Jesus Christ.  If you do not believe this, just call a prayer meeting and see how few people show up.  We are too afraid to pray in front of others.  We are too fearful of saying the wrong thing or looking unspiritual.  Let me ask:  who wants you to think that way?
 

 

            The business of Christ’s church and all its leadership is prayer, and we need to re-arrange our lives to make it happen so that we give God our focused attention.  When prayer takes a back seat to everything else, we end up fighting the wrong battles and the result is a lot of friendly fire where people get spiritually and emotionally hurt because we are not in touch with God.  Our battle is not with flesh and blood human beings; it is with Satan and his wicked spirits (Ephesians 6:12).  Fight them, not each other!