WHAT STUDENTS NEED TODAY

Dan O’Deens, May 25, 2022

I was a Children’s and Student Pastor.  I taught Youth Ministry Philosophy and Programming and trained the next wave of Youth Pastors at a College campus.  Some things do not change!

Our students primarily need 2 Things:

  1. Adults present and in their lives who genuinely love them with the unconditional love of Jesus
  2. Adults who will pray for them and demonstrate the love of Jesus to them

Can I encourage you today in light of the tragedies that continue to happen in our schools and to our children?

God ordained and gave us the gift of ‘family’.   Some have been gifted with amazing immediate families.  Some are from broken homes.  We need to once again embrace God’s master plan for making disciples.  Values are caught not taught.  Do we genuinely love God?  Is that reflected in our practice?  Do our children see that?  Do we love our neighbors?  Those are the two greatest commands Jesus addressed.

What would our world look like if:

  • Our children saw their mom’s and dad’s in love with one another
  • Our children saw healthy dialogue over disagreements that ended in a loving embrace
  • Our children saw a reverse from being ‘experience rich and relationally poor’
  • Our children actually played outside in their neighborhoods and local parks with diversity surrounding them
  • Our children experienced ‘date nights’ and family outings with loving and playful interaction
  • Our children became a part of a local church and they began to worship God together
  • Our children experiences an evening meal together with their family and sometimes other families
  • Our children were allowed to be creative again
  • Our children felt comfortable sharing their struggles with their parents no matter how difficult
  • Our children experienced loving discipline rather than ‘friendship’ from their parents
  • Our children were introduced to a God who loves them so much and they knew that nothing they could do would make God love them anymore or make Him love them any less
  • Our children knew that Jesus was about a relationship rather than a religion
  • Our children knew that Christianity was a place where faith and fun can come together

As we think about our broken world.  Let’s take a look at the broken home.  Let’s get wholistically healthy.  Just because ‘your’ family is healthy does not mean someone from an unhealthy environment cannot wreak havoc on your world.   Let’ do better.  Let’s turn our hearts back to Jesus and demonstrate His love and Love Our Neighbors.

Let’s pray for the family construct all over the world.  Let’s pray for the Church who can serve those families well.  And, let’s pray for government to be discerning and wise to our times.   All 3 of these entities are ordained by God himself.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  Prov 22:6