Student Ministry August 2018
Dear Church Family,
Recently I have been thinking about the fact that we call ourselves a church family. We are indeed a family built up of adopted sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, who purchased us through Jesus Christ our Lord and elder brother. Similarly to how we all have family names that denote to whom we belong, our heavenly family name is Christian. It is our new last name. It was given to us when we were born again into this family of God. My true name is Brian James Van Doren Christian, and that declares that I belong to Christ our Savior, God our Father, and the Holy Spirit our helper. Everyone who has this same family name is my sibling… and that has a very significant meaning for how we live together.
Oakhill Baptist Church makes up one local gathering of this family, which has spread over all the earth and is still growing day by day. It is the specific gathering of my family (Christians) to which I belong. Families in the world today do not always give us an accurate depiction of how we are to interact with one another in our heavenly family. If we think that the Christians should live like families of the world, then we should rarely speak to each other, disrespect and hold grudges against each other, seek the approval of others more than our family members, and spend very little time with one another. Clearly this is mistaken, but unfortunately it is too often true of some gatherings of the Christian family. This is what happens when a gathering of the Christian family listens more the world and their own selfish tendencies than they do to the Word of God. Thankfully, our church as a whole prefers to listen to God’s Word over the ways of the world and our selfish impulses. We, as a whole, choose to spend time together in fun fellowship and deep discipleship.
Time spent together in fun fellowship and deep discipleship is exactly what a healthy family needs. That is what the student ministry has been focusing on this summer. We have spent much of our time together simply having fun and enjoying a few laughs. But we have also been focusing intentionally on our relationships with Christ and how that ought to impact how we relate to one another. Those last two sentences are not mutually exclusive, however. Often we have had fun fellowship and intentional discipleship at the same time! The reason this is so important is because it is in these times that the gospel is worked out in our lives. Students know that “Jesus” is the right answer in Sunday School. But they won’t see how Jesus actually guides their thoughts and actions when interpersonal drama creeps in unless they are experiencing regular Christian fellowship and intentional discipleship. They need to spend time with their heavenly family and be committed to seeing the gospel that unites us together worked out in their relationships. We all need this. And we need to lead the younger generation to strive for this. The question is, will we be committed to our heavenly family, or will we be committed to ourselves?
Sincerely,
Brian Van Doren
