Awesome Questions at The Refuge

Last week I had a great opportunity teach at our Wednesday night youth group meeting and I need to share it here. What a blast! First off, Kenny announced that the vote the students had taken to name the ministry was in, and the youth group is now called The Refuge. I came up to teach right after that, and realized I was officially the first speaker for The Refuge - what an honor! :) The students even applauded when I told them about my distinction!

On to the main point: I jumped in on a Q&A series our youth ministry is doing. The students were asked to submit any question they wanted an answer to (Bible, theology, life, sex, relationships… you name it). And submit questions they did! I saw the entire list of their questions, and wow: other than a few off-the-wall random ones (for the record: no, Adam did NOT have a belly button!) they came up with deep question after deep question. I told the students that I’d have been thrilled if the adults at our church had asked such good questions! The questions I dealt with were:

1. Why did God only pick 1 people (the Jews) to be his people? Wouldn’t he want everyone to be his people?


2. Are the 10 Commandments still valid today?


3. What is the book of Jeremiah about?


4. What is a good Christian?

I don't have space to go into the answers I gave to these questions, though if there's sufficient interest I'll do so in another post.

After I spoke the students broke into their small groups, and I sat in on several. The students asked their leaders about many things, including the nature of the Trinity, whether moral standards are absolute, why God didn’t spell out the details of moral behavior in the Bible, and even one young man who is wrestling through the question of where speaking in tongues fits in to the Christian life. And those were just the conversations I know of and participated in!

Three conclusions from last Wednesday: First, I had a great time hanging out with the 60 or 80 students who were there. Some of them are a bit “edgy,” but what better place for them to be on a Wednesday night? These students are energetic and open to asking questions - a delight to be with. Second, teens today are asking hard-core questions, and I am increasingly concerned that churches aren’t helping them think when we give trite answers. We need to engage with them, and our youth ministry is doing that.

Which leads me to the last thing: our youth ministry team RULES! Our youth pastor Kenny Stone is great at connecting with the students as well as providing leadership to a growing ministry. And his team of Luke Thomas, Meagan Horst and Brian Rhee are all top-notch. I love these people and I’m glad they’re the ones developing the ministry my own kids will enter soon.