Treasuring Christ in the Home

Steve Wright, author of ReTHINK, Founder of InQuest Ministries, and a close personal friend in ministry, has become one of the foremost national leaders in connecting churches & families in a partnership where families are empowered to be the primary disciplers of their own children. It has had a revolutionary impact on churches around the nation. He has taken the helm on providing biblical, practical, and reproducible tools for equipping families to thrive, which in turn causes churches to thrive.

I have included a statement from Steve below, explaining a powerful tool he is offering to all of us who serve in the student ministry arena, and when we get involved...it will bless the nations for FREE! If you’re serious about Kingdom impact in the student world, you better read this and get on board!


...For the past 25 years I have had a front-row seat as a youth and family pastor serving in the local church, and God has placed a great burden on my heart for both the church and the family. My heart breaks as I see crumbling families in our churches and a disconnect that has developed between church and home. Parents often have no idea what their children are being taught and are seldom resourced to be primary disciplers of them. Anyone would have to admit that our strategy of reaching the next generation for Christ is simply not working.

I have also been increasingly burdened with what our youth and children are being taught. Four years ago, a national curriculum provider sent us a letter stating that they would not be covering the crucifixion because they felt it was too graphic. Christian Smith and other researchers have also clearly articulated how “therapeutic moralism” has creeped into our theology and teaching. Gen 6 was not written as a moral lesson for us to make better decisions, and John 6 wasn’t written so we would be reminded to share. Passages like these teach big truths about God and the Gospel, and these are the truths this next generation must hear.

Over the last couple of years, Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC has been working with other local church pastors and ministry leaders across the nation to develop a Gospel-centered curriculum that addresses the disconnect that is purposeful to connect the church and home. There are five distinctives that have guided us every step of this process.

·         Our content driver is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
·         We intentionally connect the church and the home.
·         The curriculum is unified, so all ages are learning the same stories and truths each week.
·         Teacher-friendly lesson plans include games, original songs, creative ideas, and even devotionals for your teachers.
·         We share our curriculum for free to nations, church plants and missionaries.

So how can you help?

1) Would you consider partnering with us by using this curriculum? Your church will find a savings of around 70% for K-12th grade by using Treasuring Christ Curriculum. Our curriculum was written for Providence Baptist and so we desire to share this resource with other local churches at as low of a price as possible. All purchases then allow us to give this resource away to the nations. We plan to begin translations in 2012.

2) Help us spread the word. If you would forward this email to several of your friends it would be a great help. We are 100% dependent on the power of the Gospel to move this message forward. You can read here what ministry leaders around the world are saying about Treasuring Christ.

3) If you have any question regarding Treasuring Christ curriculum please contact me personally.

It is a privilege to partner with you in ministry.

Family Discipleship,

Steve Wright
WWW.TreasuringChristonline.com


Thank you so much for all your help and prayers as we move forward to Launch the Next Generation Missionary.

Until Every Nation Knows! (Hab. 1:5)

Chris White
President/Founder
Mobilizing Students


LET US KNOW HOW WE CAN SERVE YOU AND YOUR STUDENTS IN 2011.


MISSION TRIPS:  7 LOCATIONS ON 5 CONTINENTS
(Puerto Rico, Haiti, Guatemala, Brazil, Romania, Kenya, Philippines)

SHARING CHRIST - the only answer for the human condition
PLANTING CHURCHES - gathering converts around the Word of God to begin weekly Bible Studies
SERVING THE POOR - meeting physical needs

* All-inclusive, fully-staffed, you serve with your students & we handle all logistics,
pre & post trip devos/training, daily pics/blogs uploaded for trip reports, etc.

REGISTER FOR A MISSION TRIP TODAY


TREK-X:   A 4-YEAR JOURNEY FOR THE MISSIONAL STUDENT (18-25 year olds)

COLLEGE - completing bachelors/masters/seminary at the online university of your choice
DISCIPLESHIP - foundations, bible/theology, missions/worldview, personal evangelism/servant
leadership & spiritual disciplines
MISSIONS - travel the world on mission as a team.  (2 years in Nashville / 2 years international)

* Give your students a launching pad to change the world as they leave your ministry - - - TREK-X.
* Scholarships are available to students from ministries that are formally partnered with Trek-X.

APPLY FOR TREK-X 2011 (Apply early, but you must be 18-25 years old upon entry)
DISCOVER WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOUR MINISTRY TO BECOME A TREK-X PARTNER


WAYS TO CONNECT OR STAY INVOLVED:

www.mobilizingstudents.com
Trek-X
Chris White Band

Missional Student Ministry & The Family

So much of what I have shared in my last 2 blogs have been on the need to change the way we do student ministry, moving from Attractional-driven ministries to Missional-driven ministries. However, in my attempt to prod us to shift paradigms to a more biblical strategy, I neglected to mention the most important foundational principle that should guide our approach to any model of ministry...THE FAMILY. There are only 2 institutions in all the Bible that are ordained by God....marriage (the family), and the church.

Everything began with God. He created man in the garden, and said it wasn’t good for him to be alone (Gen 2:18). So, he creates a wife for Adam. God performs the very first marriage ceremony in the garden and blesses them with this command...”Be fruitful and multiply”. Family is God’s idea!

He designed family to be the basic common institution through which every individual would experience the love of God, share community, and be discipled to repeat this same experience with their future family....on down through the generations. Therefore, family is the basic fabric of all communities & civilizations worldwide. That’s why when the family is destroyed through sin (premarital sex, divorce, addictions, bad theology, etc.) the culture begins to fall apart. I believe everything negative that ends up on the nightly news is a result of people not having the Gospel, which trickles down to families falling apart. Then, when people don’t experience family the way God intended it, life just doesn’t work, and all types of distortions are birthed (homosexuality, same-sex marriages, shacking up, etc.) Most charities, social justice projects, entitlement programs, and humanitarian aid efforts, other than natural disaster relief, are built to meet the needs of the fallout from broken families.

We need to also remember, when God does something, he starts at the micro level and moves to the macro level. [ie: A baby is born & grows into an adult. Our skin replaces itself every 30 days, not in sheets of skin, but from the cell level. God started with a man (Abraham), built a family (Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob), and formed a nation (Israel), in order to reach all the NATIONS. Salvation starts at the heart and works itself outward, ultimately changing our entire lives.] God is always working from small to large, or inside to out (which was my point about being missional rather than attractional in our ministries) Man, to marriage, to family, to the church, to community, to civilization, to the nations. This is what makes the Attractional model non-biblical. It tries to grow from the outside in, rather than the inside out.

Anyway, the family makes up the basic DNA of all our churches and is God’s design for passing on life at its fullest under the leadership of the Lord Himself. That being said, our student ministries must set our families up to succeed.

SOME THOUGHTS TO CONSIDER:
Biblically, God intends for parents to be the primary disciplers of their own children, not the youth pastor.
(Gen. 18:18-19; Deut. 4:9-10; 6:6-9; all of Proverbs; Mal. 4:6; Luke 1:17; Eph. 6:4; etc.)
We are not going to be connected to our students forever, their parents will.
All that we’ve taught or invested in students has little impact if it’s not modeled at home by their parents.
All statistics show that parents still rank as the highest influencer of their teens, over friends and culture.
Student pastors haven’t always existed. They are a recent phenomenon within the last 50 years.
So, we must consider that our role is secondary as a student pastor. We are not the all in all to the student. We should be equipping the parents to disciple their own students while we provide the secondary support and encouragement needed for true discipleship. Truth be told, if parents discipled their own students, our roles would diminish greatly. Maybe that’s a threat to you, but have you ever considered the total impact you could have & what your role might be with a super healthy, highly functional family structure in the homes of your students?

For further info on how to help parents succeed in discipling their own students, I’ve listed one of my very close friends and colleagues who has served the church for over 20 years. Their church has restructured their entire existence around total family impact. He is a forerunning leader in helping parents succeed as the primary disciplers of their own students. Feel free to connect with him for further Q&A.

STEVE WRIGHT
Author of “ReThink”, and Pastor of Parent & Family Discipleship
Providence Baptist Church; Raleigh, NC
CLICK TO CONNECT

May the Lord give you wisdom as you continue serving students & their families. Thank you so much for all your help and prayers as we move forward to Launch the Next Generation Missionary.

Until Every Nation Knows! (Hab. 1:5)

Chris White
President/Founder
Mobilizing Students