On fire?

[faithonhigh]

I'm an 18 year old Christian, and I've found it very difficult to find other Christians my age who are as devoted to their faith as I am. My two best friends are on fire for God, but other than that I've found most Christians my age very watered down, which is very discouraging. I know that our relationship with Christ is personal, and isn't perfect, but as a Christian I feel very convicted to show Christ to others and live as Godly as I possibly can, and try my hardest. I can't seem to understand why people seem to think being a Sunday Christian is enough. It's frustrating, and I would seriously love to meet some new people who make God absolutely first in their life!

 

[JustBrandon]

I know what you mean. I feel that too many teenagers these days just don't care anymore. I've been from church to church and it always seems the teens want to just goof around. Of course, having fun is important but it just seems that many teens aren't serious when it comes to God. Either that or I'm just too mature.

 

[faithonhigh]

I know what you mean. I feel that too many teenagers these days just don't care anymore. I've been from church to church and it always seems the teens want to just goof around. Of course, having fun is important but it just seems that many teens aren't serious when it comes to God. Either that or I'm just too mature.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having fun! But I think it's important to know the difference between when it's appropraite to have fun and to be serious! Like in my youth group, we play a game every time before we start, which is awesome! But when the lesson starts and during the worship part I think it should be taken seriously, and unfortunately it's not. It's very discouraging, but I'm trying my hardest to be the example they need.

 

[JustBrandon]

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having fun! But I think it's important to know the difference between when it's appropraite to have fun and to be serious! Like in my youth group, we play a game every time before we start, which is awesome! But when the lesson starts and during the worship part I think it should be taken seriously, and unfortunately it's not. It's very discouraging, but I'm trying my hardest to be the example they need.

That's how it was at the church I've been visiting. The teens would play a game and then have a lesson, but would complain that they'd rather keep playing the game. It saddens me that that is all that interests them. Personally, we go to church for God, not ourselves.

 

[faithonhigh]

That's how it was at the church I've been visiting. The teens would play a game and then have a lesson, but would complain that they'd rather keep playing the game. It saddens me that that is all that interests them. Personally, we go to church for God, not ourselves.

Oh I know! The youth at my church do that too, and since I'm the oldest youth member, my youth pastor will let me do lessons occasionaly, and the last time I did a lesson after everyone got there I told them there wasn't going to be any games today and almost all of them started yelling about it, and part of my lesson was about how one of our former youth members fell away from God and was texting me and told me about how no one from the church ever talked to him anymore or bothered to see how he was doing. So he just stopped coming and eventually fell away and started getting back into drugs, and no one from our church even realized it. So one of my main points was that people we know, love and care about are out in the world, getting caught up in worldly things, and falling away from God, and we didn't even notice but we're concerned that there was no game for that night.. They didn't really enjoy it, but it needed to be said. I just have such a passion for God, and I can't understand why people take it lightly.

 

[G4JC]

Sadly, this is the result of a Post-Modern generation by progressives in the Emerging Church. When Youth Groups spend more time clowning and choking people with Chubby Bunny instead of preaching the Word, we have a problem... snopes.com: Chubby Bunny Death

I am happy to see that your on fire for God. Don't compromise! Continue to share your love for Christ with you and your friends no matter what. Set the World on Fire! Britt Nicole | Set the World on Fire - YouTube

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. - 2 Timothy 4:2

 

[faithonhigh]

Sadly, this is the result of a Post-Modern generation by progressives in the Emerging Church. When Youth Groups spend more time clowning and choking people with Chubby Bunny instead of preaching the Word, we have a problem... snopes.com: Chubby Bunny Death

I am happy to see that your on fire for God. Don't compromise! Continue to share your love for Christ with you and your friends no matter what. Set the World on Fire! Britt Nicole | Set the World on Fire - YouTube

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. - 2 Timothy 4:2

Trust me, I am trying very hard, and I will NEVER stop!! It just breaks my heart.

 

[JustBrandon]

Oh I know! The youth at my church do that too, and since I'm the oldest youth member, my youth pastor will let me do lessons occasionaly, and the last time I did a lesson after everyone got there I told them there wasn't going to be any games today and almost all of them started yelling about it, and part of my lesson was about how one of our former youth members fell away from God and was texting me and told me about how no one from the church ever talked to him anymore or bothered to see how he was doing. So he just stopped coming and eventually fell away and started getting back into drugs, and no one from our church even realized it. So one of my main points was that people we know, love and care about are out in the world, getting caught up in worldly things, and falling away from God, and we didn't even notice but we're concerned that there was no game for that night.. They didn't really enjoy it, but it needed to be said. I just have such a passion for God, and I can't understand why people take it lightly.

I'm the oldest teen there too and I was allowed to teach once. They were going to try getting me in as an assistant teacher and maybe become the teacher for the teens, but the first time I tried, everyone just left the room and did their own thing. So me being one not to say anything just left. I didn't go back for about a month because I had become so fed up with the people of the church. No one even noticed my brother and I were gone. And I'm sure you're lesson was very powerful. No matter what others may do, don't lose your fire and passion. I'm sure you'll do great things, maybe even help these people with no fire.

 

[faithonhigh]

I'm the oldest teen there too and I was allowed to teach once. They were going to try getting me in as an assistant teacher and maybe become the teacher for the teens, but the first time I tried, everyone just left the room and did their own thing. So me being one not to say anything just left. I didn't go back for about a month because I had become so fed up with the people of the church. No one even noticed my brother and I were gone. And I'm sure you're lesson was very powerful. No matter what others may do, don't lose your fire and passion. I'm sure you'll do great things, maybe even help these people with no fire.

Well, I apologize that they did that! And thank you! I won't lose my fire or passion!! And I do hope I can make a difference! Thank you for the encouragement!!

 

[JustBrandon]

Well, I apologize that they did that! And thank you! I won't lose my fire or passion!! And I do hope I can make a difference! Thank you for the encouragement!!

No need. I've gone back and they've gotten a little better. Still, they're focus isn't completely on God, but it's a progress I suppose. And you're welcome. It's nice to meet another teen with a passion.

 

[faithonhigh]

No need. I've gone back and they've gotten a little better. Still, they're focus isn't completely on God, but it's a progress I suppose. And you're welcome. It's nice to meet another teen with a passion.

That's awesome!! It is a progress and it looks like it's getting somewhere! And agreed!! It's very refreshing to meet someone on fire for God!

 

[JustBrandon]

That's awesome!! It is a progress and it looks like it's getting somewhere! And agreed!! It's very refreshing to meet someone on fire for God!

Yeah, currently we've been trying to get the rest of the teens into music and maybe sing praise and worship songs in front of the church. They weren't too interested so I tried to write a song to show them that even teens can make a difference. We'll what God makes of that.

 

[faithonhigh]

Yeah, currently we've been trying to get the rest of the teens into music and maybe sing praise and worship songs in front of the church. They weren't too interested so I tried to write a song to show them that even teens can make a difference. We'll what God makes of that.

That's awesome!! I go to an Assemblies of God church, and there's this thing called Fine Arts which is a competition for youth in Assemblies of God churches. There's a group of about 5 of us that participate, and we perform all of our stuff in front of our church. The actual competition was this past weekend actually. But I think it's awesome that people use their talents to glorify God! That's one of the coolest things!

 

[JustBrandon]

That's awesome!! I go to an Assemblies of God church, and there's this thing called Fine Arts which is a competition for youth in Assemblies of God churches. There's a group of about 5 of us that participate, and we perform all of our stuff in front of our church. The actual competition was this past weekend actually. But I think it's awesome that people use their talents to glorify God! That's one of the coolest things!

The church I've been visiting is an Assemblies of Christ or God church, I can't remember which. I think the teens were invited to a competition like that, but they didn't want to go. It does sound really fun though just glorify God with the talents He's given.

 

[faithonhigh]

The church I've been visiting is an Assemblies of Christ or God church, I can't remember which. I think the teens were invited to a competition like that, but they didn't want to go. It does sound really fun though just glorify God with the talents He's given.

Oh my goodness. They should really get involved! It's so awesome!! And there's a state competition and if you do well you get sent to nationals!! We get to go to nationals for our drama that we did and one girl is going for her solo! It's such an awesome experience because there's hundreds of participants, so you get to watch anything you want too! And they always have a worship time, and it's just soo awesome!

 

[JustBrandon]

Oh my goodness. They should really get involved! It's so awesome!! And there's a state competition and if you do well you get sent to nationals!! We get to go to nationals for our drama that we did and one girl is going for her solo! It's such an awesome experience because there's hundreds of participants, so you get to watch anything you want too! And they always have a worship time, and it's just soo awesome!

That sounds awesome. I'll have to mention that to them. Maybe they'll actually get involved with some motivation. haha These kids sure need it. Have you participated in the competitions? If so, may I ask what it was you did?

 

[oldernotwiser]

this came from my website, Ron's Notes From China - Welcome. it was written after seeing the difficulties and pain my chinese grandaughter was going through in a relationship. she survived, and maybe the holy spirit really is working but while she is still not christian (she has seen too much of the chinese church and its combination of extreme calvinism and prosperity gospel) but she now is beginning to see the proof of gods existance in values, beauty, and love. for someone who sees the hebrew and christian scriptures simply as more ancient religious texts from ancient foreign cultures that may be the first step. i leave the rest to my testimony (in life and not simply words) and the holy spirit.


On Getting Old in an Internet Driven World

It’s amazing; sometimes it can take so long to understand something that should be so simple. “How are you today Tom?” ….. “Just waiting to die, just waiting to die.” That was twenty years ago in a nursing home in Maine. I was pastor of a small New England church at the time and standing beside that bed, breathing the disinfected air of a nursing home, it was hard to think of a response. Now, at seventy five, I think I am beginning to understand what he meant. It was simple. It just meant; “I don’t like the world I find myself in.”

I am in China now, I’ve been here for seven years and it’s not China that I dislike, it’s a world that’s falling apart and leading China and itself rapidly on an electronic media leash into what is bound to be a social hell. I live in a disintegrating Chinese family, a family first broken by revolution, then, the pieces shattered by Cultural Revolution. I see young people convinced by media (and lives lived in a world formed by media) who believe that permanent relationships are impossible. I see other young people who see it as a non issue. We are now in a world where many of the men who were condemned for using women, are now role models for women as well as men, and the few young men and women who resist are more and more confused, hurt, or marginalized by their peers.

It’s a world I helped to create and I don’t like what I see. I bought too much of it as it began and failed to fight hard enough against it when I began to see where it was going. We are headed into a world where anomie rules and chaos is normal. I have had my hand in it’s creation but I now see what has been done. The 19th and early 20th centuries were a time of great turmoil. Things calmed down for a while (if we can call a couple of world wars calm,) but it will be far worse this time. China is an example. The Chinese family, the building block of Chinese society, is collapsing. It has already happened in America. Change is the fundamental quality of history, but change has never happened at such a rate and on such a scale as we see in the world today. Between the internet and mass media we are being taught to accept changes in basic values that will without doubt, have tremendous social consequences for both individuals and society itself. We have seen change that accepts what was once seen as “wrong” because it is so common, and rejects many of the rules of the past as either oppressive, wrong, or just obsolete in this new world.

I saw the evils. I was in the American South when bus stations had water fountains labeled “white” and “colored.” It was a world where abuse was accepted: “What do all battered women have in common? They just can’t shut up.” Seeing those water fountains turned me into a radical, and the jokes and attitudes turned me into (at the very least,) a feminist sympathizer. I saw the end of Colonialism and the beginning of a Neo Colonialism that now seems to be morphing into some kind of Multi National Corporate Colonialism. Now, looking back, I see that we have not “thrown out the baby with the bath water.” We have thrown much out, but seem to have saved (in the name of freedom,) the dirty water. Now, we are bathing generations of babies in the dirty water, then throwing them into a world with less and less structure, to develop their own rules for interpersonal behavior. We failed, when in our rejection of the evils of our society, we at the same time displayed such a casual attitude to those rules that gave society structure at the basic level that we made them seem irrelevant. We have failed to make the world into the future paradise imagined in the beautiful dreamtime of the 60's and 70'.

Having said all this, I’m not just “waiting to die,” there is still a lot that I must do (and see) before I'm ready for that, but at the same time I am certainly not unhappy with being seventy five years old and when I look at where we are going it's interesting but it’s not at all frightening to know that Sister Death is on her way to guide me to Fiddlers Green.

 

[faithonhigh]

That sounds awesome. I'll have to mention that to them. Maybe they'll actually get involved with some motivation. haha These kids sure need it. Have you participated in the competitions? If so, may I ask what it was you did?

Yes I have. This competition was my third year doing it. My first year I did a drama, a human video, and a short sermon. My second year I did the same thing as my first year. And this year I did a drama, a spoken word, and a short sermon. Unfortunately I graduate high school next month, so this will be my last year in the actual Fine Arts competition, but they do have something for college aged youth called Kappa Tau which is the same thing, you just can't do anything with the middle schoolers and high schoolers, but I'll do that until I graduate college!

 

[JustBrandon]

Yes I have. This competition was my third year doing it. My first year I did a drama, a human video, and a short sermon. My second year I did the same thing as my first year. And this year I did a drama, a spoken word, and a short sermon. Unfortunately I graduate high school next month, so this will be my last year in the actual Fine Arts competition, but they do have something for college aged youth called Kappa Tau which is the same thing, you just can't do anything with the middle schoolers and high schoolers, but I'll do that until I graduate college!

That is very cool. And really? I'll have to check that Kappa Tau out. I'm in college now but have yet to find many Christians programs or any at all.

 

[faithonhigh]

this came from my website, Ron's Notes From China - Welcome. it was written after seeing the difficulties and pain my chinese grandaughter was going through in a relationship. she survived, and maybe the holy spirit really is working but while she is still not christian (she has seen too much of the chinese church and its combination of extreme calvinism and prosperity gospel) but she now is beginning to see the proof of gods existance in values, beauty, and love. for someone who sees the hebrew and christian scriptures simply as more ancient religious texts from ancient foreign cultures that may be the first step. i leave the rest to my testimony (in life and not simply words) and the holy spirit.


On Getting Old in an Internet Driven World

It’s amazing; sometimes it can take so long to understand something that should be so simple. “How are you today Tom?” ….. “Just waiting to die, just waiting to die.” That was twenty years ago in a nursing home in Maine. I was pastor of a small New England church at the time and standing beside that bed, breathing the disinfected air of a nursing home, it was hard to think of a response. Now, at seventy five, I think I am beginning to understand what he meant. It was simple. It just meant; “I don’t like the world I find myself in.”

I am in China now, I’ve been here for seven years and it’s not China that I dislike, it’s a world that’s falling apart and leading China and itself rapidly on an electronic media leash into what is bound to be a social hell. I live in a disintegrating Chinese family, a family first broken by revolution, then, the pieces shattered by Cultural Revolution. I see young people convinced by media (and lives lived in a world formed by media) who believe that permanent relationships are impossible. I see other young people who see it as a non issue. We are now in a world where many of the men who were condemned for using women, are now role models for women as well as men, and the few young men and women who resist are more and more confused, hurt, or marginalized by their peers.

It’s a world I helped to create and I don’t like what I see. I bought too much of it as it began and failed to fight hard enough against it when I began to see where it was going. We are headed into a world where anomie rules and chaos is normal. I have had my hand in it’s creation but I now see what has been done. The 19th and early 20th centuries were a time of great turmoil. Things calmed down for a while (if we can call a couple of world wars calm,) but it will be far worse this time. China is an example. The Chinese family, the building block of Chinese society, is collapsing. It has already happened in America. Change is the fundamental quality of history, but change has never happened at such a rate and on such a scale as we see in the world today. Between the internet and mass media we are being taught to accept changes in basic values that will without doubt, have tremendous social consequences for both individuals and society itself. We have seen change that accepts what was once seen as “wrong” because it is so common, and rejects many of the rules of the past as either oppressive, wrong, or just obsolete in this new world.

I saw the evils. I was in the American South when bus stations had water fountains labeled “white” and “colored.” It was a world where abuse was accepted: “What do all battered women have in common? They just can’t shut up.” Seeing those water fountains turned me into a radical, and the jokes and attitudes turned me into (at the very least,) a feminist sympathizer. I saw the end of Colonialism and the beginning of a Neo Colonialism that now seems to be morphing into some kind of Multi National Corporate Colonialism. Now, looking back, I see that we have not “thrown out the baby with the bath water.” We have thrown much out, but seem to have saved (in the name of freedom,) the dirty water. Now, we are bathing generations of babies in the dirty water, then throwing them into a world with less and less structure, to develop their own rules for interpersonal behavior. We failed, when in our rejection of the evils of our society, we at the same time displayed such a casual attitude to those rules that gave society structure at the basic level that we made them seem irrelevant. We have failed to make the world into the future paradise imagined in the beautiful dreamtime of the 60's and 70'.

Having said all this, I’m not just “waiting to die,” there is still a lot that I must do (and see) before I'm ready for that, but at the same time I am certainly not unhappy with being seventy five years old and when I look at where we are going it's interesting but it’s not at all frightening to know that Sister Death is on her way to guide me to Fiddlers Green.

I know I may be just one person but I will absolutely try my hardest to make a difference, and no matter what the world turns into, I will not be of the world.