11/18/18 - More unexpected conversation!

Good morning parents! 

This past Sunday I made your children sit through a meeting with some exalting team members as they met with people from the listening across generations class. The hope was to get your students involved with the conversation about the future of worship here at FRCZ. We want them to feel like they have meaningful input and belong at the table (because they do!) 

Impact was a little strange as well. We moved away from talking about predestination and went back to breaking down OT stories that have important truths for us to learn. This week, we were going to go through the entire story of Samson, except we got a little hung up. We pray at the beginning of every teaching time on Sunday nights. I usually ask for prayer requests, write them on my phone, and then ask people to pray for each one. This week, we had someone with a Grandma in the hospital and when I asked for someone to pray, nobody volunteered. This is a little out of character for us, especially because we all were familiar with all the people in the room. 

Normally, this would just result in me praying for the unclaimed requests, but I felt like we needed to address the stigma surrounding prayer. Why don't our kids feel comfortable praying corporately? Is it a fear of shame? A lack of the right vocabulary? When I asked them, it seemed to be a combination of not doing it often, and fearing that they wouldn't say something "right." I then proceeded to push them a little bit, asking if they were praying outside of youth group and church settings, and I was met with a lot of sheepish faces. I reminded them that they have a direct link to the God of the universe, who love then and WANTS to hear from them. Prayer is a gift! It shouldn't be scary! Then again, I was probably scared of how "plain" my prayers sounded when I was in high school as well. 

So my challenge for you as parents is this: pray with your kids. Pray with them out loud, without choosing the overly Christian jargon that we tend to associate with "good" prayers. Affirm them if they are willing to pray with you, and encourage them to pray privately. We have the opportunity to live in relationship with Jesus Christ, and a relationship without communication will surely suffer! 

By now I had dug myself into a weird hole as a youth pastor, and I needed to lighten the mood a bit, so we began talking about Samson. His story is fascinating. There are so many things he does that make negative sense, but God blesses him nonetheless. We got as far as him killing 1000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey, but there is still a large portion of the story to go. We are going to pick that up this coming Sunday and hopefully talk about some things that we are thankful for :) 

As usual, thanks for taking the time to read up on what we're talking about! You are loved and appreciated!