We have a great group of teenage young people at Christ's Community! Many are unusually mature, spiritual and wise. And all are uniquely talented. God has truly blessed us. When I think of where I was spiritually at the age of twelve (I was not yet a disciple), and where many of our young people are today, I realize we have a great potential to have Community make a great impact on our society over the next many years. Our children can start from our shoulders, and they will go so much higher than we have gone ourselves. People thought Leopold Mozart was a pretty great musician until his son Wolfgang Amadeus came along.

Perhaps you have noticed that we are trying to fold young people into our worship team lately. Our vision is to gradually train the next generation of leaders in music, in intercession, in worship and in leadership. We are committed to do this as the Lord leads.

What God challenged me with is this: it is my duty as a father not only to raise godly children, but also to prepare godly adults for life and ministry. In particular, my son Daniel and I are entering into a whole new phase in our relationship. We have cut grass and run errands and played ball together for some years now; but what about apprenticing my son to fulfill God’s call on his life? We are going to be more purposeful in that now.

Fathers are heads of their households. Part of being head means to be the primary prayer warrior and overseer of training for children. Mothers likewise have a responsibility to instruct, guide and train their children. Parents must train their sons and daughters for their future roles in life.

I’m afraid that many parents have assumed that all teens will rebel. To be sure, every young person must become his or her own individual, and that means a certain amount of finding their own dreams, searching for their own direction, and shaking off some of the behaviors of their family of origin. However, it is by no means a given that all children must rebel!

The Church’s Ministry

The church is the safety net for the family, and it is every Christian’s responsibility to help to train and instruct and disciple others. No family has every element needed to fully prepare a child for adulthood. Even if a father is training a son to take over his own business, he has blind spots, and other members of the Body can contribute different perspectives to further help. We should be especially aware of those young people who are raised without Christian parents (we might consider them spiritual orphans); they need to be fostered and built up, too.

As a church we should commit ourselves consciously to helping in the process of preparing our teens for real life. We need women who will train our younger ladies how to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God (Titus 2:4,5). We need men who will model biblical manhood for our teens. We need businessmen who will take it upon themselves to train the next generation to do Christian business.

In short, let us be about the business of training up one another. Let us prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Eph. 4:12,13)