Children's Ministry Q&A with Elders

Here are questions our parents are asking the church elders tonight in a Q&A session. I'm writing and publishing my answers beforehand so that I can improve the clarity of my thinking and speak more concisely.

Q: How can we use wisdom and protect our children, while allowing them to enjoy the benefits of social media?

What benefits are we talking about? I'd keep children off of social media, other than contacting family through your own accounts and with your direct supervision. There are benefits, but it requires self-control and discernment that only comes with maturity. Delay getting a smartphone for as long as possible and allow them to grow and mature without the pressure of navigating the Internet on their own.

Q: How would you encourage families with young children to prioritize their family while also seeing the importance of sacrificing in order to serve others (within or outside the church)?

We aren't really helping anyone in the church if our own family is in disarray. And spending lots of time together as a family without going to church teaches your children that church isn't an important part of your life. So you want to find ways to bring the two spheres together and not look at them as competing priorities. Drive to church as a family; don't take two or three cars because it's somehow more efficient. Be less eager of attending church events on your own and be more eager to attend church events when you can bring your children. Have dinner together as a family as much as possible, then occasionally invite others from the church to join you.

Q: What are some helpful ways to teach our children the theology of suffering while we live in such an affluent culture?

First, they need to see it in our own lives. We can't impose anything on our children that we are not doing ourselves. And I would focus on the idea of discipline and denial of the flesh, something we can actively pursue, and not suffering, which comes only from the hand of God.

Christians should not consume all the digital entertainment that the world produces. Most of it not only corrupts your soul and mind, but it also sucks up vast amounts of time that can be spent on other things. Saying no to Netflix is a type of suffering in this culture.

Prioritizing church life is a type of denial. You have to give up something in order to attend all public worship services, stay for Sunday school, come back for Lord's Supper Service. You may not be able to join a sports team or watch a game live.

Finally, children should be working hard at school. If your child finds school easy or boring it's in your control to find them something challenging.

Q: Any recommendations on ways to include young children (5 and younger) in serving?

Include your children in as many parts of church life as possible. For the youngest, have them attend the worship service. It's hard work (for them and you) to sit there for an hour. But they are serving the congregation by modeling the importance of worshiping God and sitting under the authority of the Word.

Q: What have been some of your favorite devotionals to do with young children? As a family?

I used a variety of children's Bible, then switched to just reading and paraphrasing the Bible directly. I'd recommend getting there as soon as possible. I would open the Bible, then tell the story in my own words, reading bits and pieces. It requires you to really know your Bible and gives you a chance to do the explaining.

Q: Any tips on preparing our children (and ourselves!) to enter into school where they will be exposed to more worldly opinions/ ways different families handle discipline and parenting?

Like delaying social media, I would delay the time when your child sits under the teaching and instruction of a godless school system and either unbelieving or spiritually-gagged teacher. Try to find a way for your children to be in a Christian school where teachers are able to give honor to God and explain history and literature and science from a Christian perspective.

When the day comes that they take courses from an unbeliever, it should be your goal that you have covered all the ground first. You want to have discussed Darwinian evolution, or arguments for atheism or religious pluralism, or the worldview that sees homosexuality as a lifestyle choice - you want to have those discussions first. They need to be able to interact with the world on all these matters, but instead of being swayed by the appeal of culture, you want them to benefit from the truth of God's Word and the wise consideration of thoughtful Christians like yourself.

Q: In addition to discipline, what ways would you suggest to help children grow in not complaining or talking back?

First and foremost, don't complain yourself or talk back to your spouse or anyone in authority in your life. Whatever you say or do, your children are most likely to do what you do.

When you do complain in front of them, make a point of confessing your sin and asking for forgiveness. You are not modeling perfection. You are modeling faithful living, which always including confession and repentance.

That said, when it's time to correct complaining, do it calmly and clearly. Don't just snap at it and go on. Stop what you're doing and address it directly. Look for natural consequences as much as possible. For instance, if they complain about dinner, they don't get dessert.

After that, don't dwell on it or bring it up again, which would build resentment (and is a form of complaining yourself).

Q: Children can often respond more quickly to dad’s authority than to moms. How can parents (particularly dads) help uphold/encourage mom's authority?

Dad needs to back up mom as she manages the household on his behalf, and mom needs to show that she submits and needs dad's authority for the moral direction of the house. If there's tension between mom and dad on this structure, the kids will intuitively sense it and exploit it. If the child obeys dad but doesn't obey mom, then he or she isn't really obeying dad. They are just manipulating the situation to get what they want. Read 1 Corinthians 11:3. So I would focus on your relationship as husband and wife and let that authority naturally spill over into your children's lives.

Are some sins unforgivable?

Question from the youth group to the church elders: Are some sins unforgivable?

Yes. Jesus says there is an unforgiveable sin. In Mark 3:29 he says, "But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin." 

But what exactly is it? In this case, the Pharisees heard Jesus’ teaching and saw Jesus’ miracles, and they were experts in the Scriptures which predicted his arrival, but when he came they not only rejected Jesus but said he was working with the power of Satan. So it was a whole-hearted rejection in response to an extraordinary amount of gracious revelation by God.

On the other hand, the Apostle Paul was a Pharisee who also rejected Christ and blasphemed God. Yet God graciously convicted him of sin and brought him to repentance and faith (Acts 9).

I don’t think we can figure out exactly what the unforgivable sin is. Jesus didn’t spell it out in detail. But it should make us very sober that a person could arrive at such a place.

And if you are sober about this you’ll be asking, "Have I committed the unforgiveable sin?" The unbelieving Pharisees wouldn’t have even asked this question because they were so confident of their righteousness. So if you are asking the question, it’s a good sign that God has given you a humble and repentant heart. God promises that "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Rom 10:13). God delights in forgiving all repentant sinners (Luke 15).

But we should never take his grace for granted. We can’t play around with sin thinking we can always repent tomorrow. The day may come when you have become so hardened and blinded by your sin that you no longer want to repent, which is a horrible place to be (Heb 12:17).

How do you know the Bible is true?

Question from the youth group to the church elders: How do you know the Bible is true?

I’d like to start by answering a similar question in reverse: How do you not need to know the Bible is true?

If you are convinced that Darwinian evolution and the laws of physics and theories of multi-verses can explain how we got here, then you have no reason to believe the Bible. If you can look at the most intricate biological system or the most picturesque landscape and are confident that it just happened by no cause and for no reason, then you have no need for the Bible. And no explanation of why the Bible is special will compel you.

On the other hand, if you think there must be a creator, then that changes everything. You can’t get something from nothing. And if you think a bit more, you realize you can’t get the personal from the impersonal, so the only way to explain us as persons, with morality and rationality and language and artistry, is if the creator is personal. And if there’s a personal God, then you can expect that he would communicate with the persons he made. And if God is going to communicate, then you need to ask if there is any place or time in human history where it appears that God has communicated. And now you can start asking serious questions about the Bible.

And once you start asking serious questions, you’ll see there’s no book like it.

It spans thousands of years of time, across many major civilizations verified by archaeology.

It was written by dozens of men, yet has a consistent story that traces from Genesis to Revelation.

It contains prophesies of historical events which are fulfilled hundreds of years later in its history.

It describes the human condition perfectly: that man is created good but has fallen into sin. That man is like God yet separated from God.

And it presents a Savior who is unlike any other. The main reason to believe the Bible is to read it and meet Jesus. He doesn’t present himself as a moral teacher or a wise man or a leader of men. He presents himself as the Savior of the World: the sinless man who lays down his life to save sinful humanity and to redeem all creation for himself.

If you don’t meet Jesus and aren’t compelled by the force of who he is and what he did, then you can always find some technical reason to dismiss the Bible. But once you see the power and beauty of who he is, you learn the treasure the Bible as God’s Holy Word.

Will the Book of Revelation happen in our lifetime?

Question from the youth group to the church elders: Do you suspect what is prophesied in Revelation will happen in our lifetime and if not then when?

The book of Revelation is very hard to interpret. The main themes are clear, like the victory of God, the defeat of Satan, the hope of the saints and the despair of the lost. If you were a 1st century Christian facing persecution from Rome, this book would have given you great comfort. However bad Caesar’s soldiers and lions were, Christ was coming soon and all the powers of this world and hell don’t have a chance against him.

But Christians differ wildly on how to pin down exactly what the symbols mean and where the timeline of the book fits into world history. So I’ll give you a few standard options, then I’ll tell you what I think.

There are four basic views:

• Futurist – The book talks about events that are still in the future for us. They will all happen at the end of this world.
• Preterist – The book talks about events that were in the immediate future for 1st century Christians, but are largely in the past for us. Much is about the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.
• Historicist – The book talks about the history of the church over the centuries, including major conflicts like the persecution by Rome, the spread of Islam, the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, etc. 
• Idealist – The book is not talking about historical events at all, past, present or future. We should read it as a story and pull out the spiritual themes.

So, what am I? I’d consider myself a "partial preterist", but I’m unclear how partial I am. I think in chapters 13 and 17 John is talking about current events in the Roman world with thinly veiled language. The original readers would have understood the Roman Caesars he was calling out.

Next, I think the Great Prostitute of chapter 17 may be a symbol of unbelieving Judaism, which hints that chapter 18 is the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, not the destruction of a future world system. Check out 11:8 which clearly identifies "the great city" with Jerusalem, not Rome.

However, I’m still a futurist for other parts of the book, especially at the end. I think chapter 20 talks about the church age which is still ongoing and chapters 21 and 22 are still in the future. And for that, I would follow Jesus’ words, "Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come." It could be very soon, even in our lifetime.

Book Review: Desiring God, Piper

In 1986 John Piper wrote Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist as a new perspective on orthodox Christian theology. A hedonist is someone who lives for pleasure, which Piper argues is true of all humans. Instead of denying and resisting our longing to be happy, he writes "we should seek to intensify it and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction." But what is the most satisfying, beautiful, desirable thing that exists? It is God himself!

With continuous exposition of Scripture, Piper shows that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. The call to believe in God is a call to delight ourselves in him. Our worship of God is the joy of tasting and seeing how wonderful He is. In each chapter Piper shows how service, money, marriage, missions and all of life is transformed by delighting in God.

Ultimately the philosophy of Christian Hedonism is grounded in the sovereign pleasure of God. Psalm 115:3 says, "Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases." We were created by a happy God who works all things for the praise of his glory and who graciously calls us to enjoy him forever.

If you think books on theology are dry and dusty, be careful picking this up. You may not be ready for the shock.

Book Review: Adopted for Life, Moore

In Adopted for Life, Russell Moore presents a Christian vision for adoption. He shares from his personal experience adopting two of his boys from a Russian orphanage and also from his training as a pastor, Bible teacher and leader in the Southern Baptist Convention. Moore asks, “What if we as Christians were known, once again, as the people who take in orphans and make of them beloved sons and daughters?”

Moore draws theological parallels between the Gospel story and the adoption of orphans today. He identifies the satanic scheme at play in Herod’s bloodthirsty slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem as well as America’s abortion culture, and then contrasts that to Joseph’s willingness to be an adoptive earthly father to Jesus.

The book has helpful advice and challenging questions to consider if you are thinking about adoption or foster care yourself, but is also beneficial if you would like to better relate to those who have adopted or have been adopted. It is a call for each of us to be like God who is a father to the fatherless and to love the orphans among us.

Prayer of Confession

Please join me in prayer as we confess our sins to the Lord.

Our heavenly Father,

We humble ourselves under your mighty hand knowing that you care for us. We want to confess our sins before you because you are both a holy God and a good God.

Your Word asks if we have any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, or any participation in the Spirit. And we have all those things. Our sin has been wiped away by the power of Christ and his work on the cross. We see your love for us in the gift of your own beloved Son for us. And we see how the Holy Spirit has also been given to us, drawing us into a greater fellowship with you and with your people. We have all these benefits.

And then you tell us we should do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility we should count others more significant than ourselves. And we want this. We see how this makes so much sense in light of who you are and what you've done for us.

But we have failed. We've done the exact opposite. We've been incredibly selfish. We're constantly concerned about our reputations. And so often we think of ourselves as much more important than others. Forgive us, Lord.

You also told us that we should do all things without grumbling or complaining because of your great salvation. You've made us lights in a dark place and you've caused us to be born again as children of God, redeeming us from a world that's crooked and twisted. So we have nothing to grumble or complain about.

And yet we grumble. We do it constantly. And we grumble and complain about the silliest, smallest, most petty stuff. Because things don't work out the way we want them to. And it's as if no one else seems to care about me or my needs - when you do. Forgive us, Lord.


But even as we confess these sins, we do it with great hope. We know that even these sins are forgiven through Christ. You tell us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling because you are working in us both to will and to work for your good pleasure. And we are working out our salvation by being honest with you right now about the sin that's still in our hearts.

And we set all our hope on your work in us. We know that you started a work in us when the light of Christ was shone in our hearts. And we believe your promise to finish the work that you began in us. You are the one who is causing us to see this sin and confess is. We ask that you would give us the mind of Christ, one that seeks to be humble like him, and to serve others like he did. Help is to be so satisfied in you that there's nothing to grumble or complain about.

We confess this is absolutely impossible for us to do ourselves. It would be a supernatural work to make me this kind of person, and to make us, as a church, a people who is blameless and innocent, selfless and humble, shining as lights here in Orange County. But this supernatural work is what we ask for because we believe that this is what you intend to do, and what you will do.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

(Sunday morning, April 15, 2018)