CDM Archive

Discipleship Ministries of the PCA

Youth Ministries

Teammates, Not Competitors

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By Dean Conkle. Consider these great teammates, past and present, in sports:

In football past- Jim Marshall and Carl Ellers, part of the famous Minnesota Vikings defense.

In football present- Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison connecting with touchdown after touchdown.

In baseball past- Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr and Ted Williams as referred to in the book Teammates Once, Friends Forever.

In baseball and basketball present- time will tell whether Alex Rodriguez and Derrick Jeter end up as great teammates for the Yankees.

Strong companies and products can be teammates:

Did you know that A&W, Black Fire, Barq’s, Crush, Dr. Pepper, Evian and Fanta are teammates under the Coca-Cola banner?

How about the fact that Mountain Dew, Code Red, Mug, Sierra Mist, Frappacino and Pepsi One are all on the same team under Pepsi-Cola?

Would it surprise you that Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC and Long John Silvers all call themselves teammates under the corporate name Yum Brands?

Teammates can be seen in many other areas of life. Teammates can and should be seen even in the church of Jesus Christ, among various ministries of His church. The purpose of this article is to help every reader see children’s ministries, youth ministries and other ministries as teammates with each other, not competitors. There’s an alternative to having hurt feelings about which ministry has the biggest budget or fighting over who can use the fellowship hall on Wednesday nights. There’s no contest over which ministry is held in higher regard with the Session; there is no need for competition between ministries over volunteers. The desire is to see how these ministries can work together not against each other, for the glory of God and the good of everyone involved.

We will prayerfully seek to answer the question, “What can children’s ministries, youth ministries and other ministries within the church do as teammates in God’s kingdom?” I believe that we have at least four answers to that question.

1. Have Complementary Purposes for the Various Ministries

I love to listen to a symphony orchestra playing a piece that emphasizes diversity yet harmony of that particular movement. The popular “Canon in D Major for Strings” by Pachelbel wonderfully illustrates this. Different instruments play different roles through different parts. Combined, it is beautiful and harmonious music. Each instrument contributes to the overall excellence of the piece. Each instrument is complementary to the other instruments. Together, they are breathtaking.

This is an incredible illustration because this is how it should be in the Lord’s church. Church ministries should be complementary to each other not in conflict with each other. Having clear purposes for our ministries is biblical. Christ had a purpose for coming down to His people (See Matt 20:28, John 10:10 and John 12:46). Paul had purpose in his life (See Phil 1:21, 2 Cor 5:9 and 1 Cor. 10:31). Paul’s words clearly imply that we should also have purpose as well. The church should also have an overall biblical purpose. Each of its ministries should have its particular purpose that falls under the umbrella of the church’s overall mission.

Three questions on discerning purpose:

Does your church have a biblically based purpose for the overall good of the church?

Do the children’s ministries, youth ministries and other ministries of the church have purposes that harmonize with each other and with the church overall?

Does the children’s ministry purpose flow beautifully and powerfully into the purpose of the middle school ministry, which in turn flows wonderfully and effectively into the high school ministry, which continues the strong flow of purposeful growth into the college/career group ministry, whose goal is also in line with the overall church’s mission? An important question to simply ask is how complementary are your church’s ministries?

2. Allow the Older Students and Adults To Be a Blessing to the Children

Is there a law that says you have to pay to breathe the air that is around you? Is there a rule against going outside on a beautiful day after being in a house for five days due to snow or rain? How about a law that every American must stay awake for twenty-four continuous hours once a week? The answer to all these ridiculous questions is no.

Is there a place in Scripture that states you can’t be a blessing to someone because you are older than they are? Absolutely not! Just how exactly can middle school and high school students, along with the adults of the church, be a blessing to the children within that flock? I can think of two general ways.

Youth can joyfully use their God-given spiritual gifts on behalf of the children. 1 Peter 4:10-11 states boldly that:

“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.”

Do we see any age restrictions in this passage, especially of older and more mature saints blessing children through using their God-given spiritual gifts?

Youth can also joyfully and prayerfully live out some of the “one another” passages of Scripture with them. In the Lord’s sweet strength we can, “greet one another” (Romans 16:16), “live in harmony with one another” (Romans 12:16), “encourage one another” (1 Thess. 5:11), “pray for one another” (Eph 6:18), “love one another” (John 13:34-45) as well as live out many of the other “one another” commands peppered throughout the Bible.

A couple of questions to consider:

Are middle school and high school Christians able to begin to prayerfully discover, develop, and use their God-given spiritual gifts on behalf of others? Based on Scripture as well as personal observations of over twenty-one years in youth ministry, I think they are indeed able to do this.

Are students and adults aware of the wonderful by-product of serving others that Christ mentions in Acts 20:35, “It is more blessed to given than to receive.”?

I think it is true to say, that when we are a blessing to others, even to little children, we are indeed blessed ourselves.

3. Allow the Children to be a Blessing to the Older Students and Adults

Children really do say the darnest things:

Defining H20 and C02, a child said, “H20 is hot water and C02 is cold water.”

“The general direction of the Alps is straight up.”

“The people who followed the Lord were call the twelve opossums.”

“The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar”

And, “The word trousers is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom!”

Children often say humorous things. They can do humorous things as well, even within the Kingdom of God. They can do good things, helpful things, things that can be a blessing to other people, even middle school and high school students.

While children might not yet know what their spiritual gifts are, they can be encouraged to prayerfully learn and live out the “one another passages” in the Bible. They can live out these commands towards their parents, their brothers and sisters, their classmates at church and school, to students in their church and neighborhood, and even towards adults who are part of the body of Christ.

The “one another passages,” apply to the children here. The only limit I see is in the “formal” teaching of one another. We can learn a lot from children around us. They can teach us or remind us of some wonderful truths. But Scripture is clear that God calls specific people to teach and give oversight to the flock (1 Tim 3:1-2 and Titus 2:1-5).

Here is an idea or two of how to help children be a blessing to the rest of the church, even middle school and high school students. Perhaps do a “One Another” study on Sunday night and encourage the children to prayerfully put into practice the “one another attribute” that they learned that week. When the study is done, have the children continue a class-wide emphasis on living out a “one another action of the week.”

4. Provide Frequent Whole Family and/or Church Wide Gatherings

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, many teammates have worked well together down through the decades, and it is the prayer of our hearts here at CE&P that children’s ministries, youth ministries and other ministries within the local church across the denomination would find themselves being excellent teammates with each other as well.

Various ministries of the church are different from each other but that doesn’t mean they can’t work well together for a common cause or event.

In at least five different letters, the Lord led Paul to use the phrase” fellow-worker” or “co-worker” concerning people that were helping him in the kingdom. In Philemon, Paul uses the phrase with Mark, Aristech’s, Dumas and Luke; while in 1 Thess. 3, Phil. 2, 2 Cor. 8 and Romans 16 Paul uses this term regarding Timothy, Epaphroditus, Titus, and Urbanus respectively. I believe it is biblical to view various ministries and those involved as co-workers or fellow-workers.

What can each of these church ministries intentionally doto demonstrate their connectedness? And how can doing this really be a blessing to all the families as well as to the church as a whole?

Some applications to consider:

Have different ministries work together to host a church-wide picnic.

Have various ministries work together to sponsor a family or church-wide skating night (with games everyone can play in the evening).

Have a Valentine’s Day party or dinner.

Have several ministries host a Reformation Party.

Have different ministries come together to sponsor one night of the church missions conference, utilizing those involved in each of the sponsoring ministries.

Have a few ministries collaborate on a church-wide BBQ/Pool Party or a church-wide “Lake Day.”

Have different ministries within the church team up to provide leadership for a church-wide service project (either on the church grounds or away from it).

It is our prayer that various ministries within the local church would work well together and bring out the best in each other. Great teammates are not limited to ball fields and corporate businesses. Great teammates can be seen also in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The goal is that our various ministries would work together as an intentionally orchestrated whole in a way that Jesus would be glorified. Viewing each other as teammates within the same overall mission will be a blessing to the whole of the church.

May God’s Kingdom be filled with ministries within the church where the participants view themselves as teammates not competitors with one another.

Praying the Psalms

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“Whoever prays the Psalms earnestly and regularly will soon stop those other light and personal little devotional prayers and say: Ah, there is not the juice, the strength, the passion, the fire which I find in the Psalms.” Martin Luther[i]

By Archie Parrish. God blessed my wife and me with three children. From the moment of their births we talked to them. Daily we did everything we could to get them to repeat what we said. At first only Jean and I could understand the sounds they made. Day after day, we continued talking to them, and after a while they began echoing our words back to us. Single words grew into short sentences. Because we continued to talk to our children they learned to talk to us.

In a similar fashion God teaches His children the language of prayer. The Holy Spirit prays for us and helps us learn to pray. The Holy Spirit inspired the whole Bible; and He uses all Scripture to help us pray. But He especially uses the book of Psalms. As we pray the Psalms, the Holy Spirit helps us commune with the Father, conform to the Son, and combat the devil.

Only men and women set free from sin through faith in Christ can successfully fight spiritual warfare. As sons and daughters in a conscious vital relationship with our Father and with His family in a local church, we can properly serve as soldiers in Christ’s army and gain victory in battles with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Leaders in spiritual warfare need not be brilliant; they cannot be self-confident. They are to be humble servants, who are courageous because they are confident in the Lord. They lead by example and are people of prayer who multiply after their kind. Soldiers in spiritual warfare are humble followers of Jesus who maintain their morale by a steady diet of psalms and basic Christian truth, especially Scripture. They boldly engage the enemy. Spiritual warriors know their enemies and believe God is sufficient to defeat them. Spiritual warriors believe kingdom-focused prayer is their super-weapon.

The Calvinist reformers were led by a militant aristocracy and financed by wealthy bourgeoisie. They put up long and frequently successful battles. Yet the leadership and finance could not have won the day had the individual Calvinists not possessed, to quote Cromwell, “a conscience of what they were doing.” In many cases, they won their battles or retrieved those they had lost, not through generalship nor through greater economic power, but because of superior morale. In building up and maintaining this morale, the battle hymns of the Psalter played a conspicuous part.[ii]

The psalms owed their importance in this connection primarily to Calvin himself. Usually when thinking of all his influence on the resistance movements, we tend to stress his teachings, his organization, and his personality. Yet at the grass-roots level these perhaps did not have all of the impact which we usually attribute to them. The thing that really “grabbed” the common man, the ordinary Calvinistic soldier, was something much more mundane: his catechetical training[iii] and the congregational singing of the psalms.

David said, “I give myself to prayer” (Psalm 109:4). Literally the original Hebrew reads, “I prayer”, i.e. “I am prayer.” The Holy Spirit desires to help us become prayer. Here is how He is helping me. I begin every day with the book of Psalms. I divided the book into thirty almost equal portions and I spend about thirty minutes prayerfully reading aloud one portion. I use the English Standard Version because it is an accurate translation and it is easy to read.

This daily discipline has been so rewarding that I am now trying to learn all 150 Psalms by heart. It was not unusual for devout Jews in the time of Jesus and His Apostles to know by heart the “whole of David,” i.e., the entire book of Psalms. It is probable that our Lord Jesus had all the Psalms memorized. They certainly were the very fabric of His life. In His most painful moments, as He faced death on the cross, He instinctively cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46). These are David’s words recorded in Psalm 22:1.

Jesus’ last words from the cross were, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). As soon as their children began to talk, devout Jewish mothers taught them to pray, “Into Your hand I commit my spirit” (Psalm 31:5). Each night before going to sleep the children prayed these words. To this childhood prayer, Jesus adds the personal address, “Father.” Concerning His atoning work on the cross, Jesus declared, “It is finished” (John 19:30), then He prayed to the Father as a little child turning in for the night.

Paul urged earlyChristiansto “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16). Praying the Psalms built the early Christians into an army of kingdom intercessors. New Testament writers quote more verses from the Psalms than any other Old Testament book.[iv] Praying the Psalter shaped the life of early Christianity into a militant kingdom focus.

Martin Luther relied on the Psalms to become a man of prayer. Said Luther:”When I feel that I have become cool and joyless in prayer because of other tasks or thoughts (for the flesh and the devil always impede and obstruct prayer), I take my little Psalter, hurry to my room, or, if it be the day and hour for it, to the church where a congregation is assembled and, as time permits, I say quietly to myself and word-for-word the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and, if I have time, some words of Christ or of Paul, or some psalms, just as a child might do.”[v]

The Secret that unlocks the Psalter is the fact that it is the prayer book of Jesus, the Messiah and Mediator. He is the Head; the Church is His Body. And Head and Body are one; so the Body should join in the prayers of the Head. With this perspective we can pray all the Psalms, even when the writer protests his innocence or invokes God’s judgment, or goes through infinite depths of suffering. Jesus Christ Himself is praying here and in the whole Psalter.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer observes:”This insight the New Testament and the Church have always recognized and declared. The Man Jesus Christ, to whom no affliction, no ill, no suffering is alien and who yet was the wholly innocent and righteous one, is praying in the Psalter through the mouth of His Church. The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word. The Psalter is the vicarious prayer of Christ for His Church. This prayer belongs not to the individual member, but to the whole Body of Christ. In the Psalter we learn to pray on the basis of Christ’s prayer.”[vi]Ask the Father to show you the praying Christ in the Psalms and teach you how to use the Psalms in your prayer life.

A Significant Question

One question that often is asked concerning praying the Psalms is: How can I pray a Psalm when it does not express exactly what I feel in my heart at the moment? Anyone who is truly honest will admit the need to pray against our own heart in order to pray rightly. After all is said and done, it is not what we want to pray that is important, but that for which God wants us to pray. Jeremiah warns, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) If we only follow our hearts, we would probably only pray for “our daily bread,” God wants us to pray that His will be done, not our will. As you pray the Psalms, begin by praying, “Father, enable me to pray not from the poverty of my heart, but from the richness of Your word.”

Making the Psalms yours

Let me close this plea to pray the Psalms by sharing with you a few practical suggestions. Below is a thirty-day schedule for praying through the Psalms. Each section requires about fifteen minutes, depending on how much meditation I do.

Before reading pray: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law…. Give me understanding, that I may keep Your law and observe it with my whole heart” (Psalm 119:18, 34). “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts; and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23, 24).

  • While reading turn the words of the Psalms into prayer.

  • Read aloud, in a normal voice if possible but at least in a whisper. (This helps concentration and avoids distraction.)

  • Read on your knees, when possible.

  • Read daily-I usually do this when the Lord awakens me early in the morning.

  • Read frequently during the day–Carry the Psalter with you and refer to the day’s portion frequently.

Let us join Luther in the following prayer:”Our dear Lord, who has given to us and taught us to pray the Psalter and the Lord’s Prayer, grant us also the spirit of prayer and grace so that we pray with enthusiasm and earnest faith, properly and without ceasing, for we need to do this; he has asked us for it and therefore wants to have it from us. To him be praise, honor, and thanksgiving. Amen.”[vii]

[i] Foreword to the Neuburg edition of the Psalms, 1545.

[ii] W. Stanford Reid, The Battle Hymns of the Lord-Calvinist Psalmody of the Sixteenth Century, p. 36.

[iii] The use of question and answer instruction used in Catechisms was part of the Passover celebration. See Exodus 12:25-27: “When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.'”

[iv] Nestl

Do I Know You?

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Most everybody talks about relational ministry. Yet relationships are so easy to miss because our agendas call for more important things.I’m embarrassed that I don’t know the names of some of the people in our little church. That creates an awkwardness that inhibits any attempt to go further. Think of the people in your congregation, your Sunday school class, people you see regularly, whose names you don’t know. It’s one reason why the church can seem so impersonal.

Consider the visitor-or is she a regular attendee you’ve simply never met? Do you introduce yourself? I never will forget the time I introduced myself to a woman at church. I asked if she was visiting and she informed me that she was a charter member. That sort of response can be a big inhibitor to saying, “Hi, my name is _____.” But if you don’t the visitor might leave saying, “I attended that church and no one spoke to me.” And knowing a person’s name is just the beginning.

A Session or Deacon’s meeting might start with a conversation about what’s happening in everyone’s life and a time of prayer for each other. It could take a half hour or more, and it could be the most important thing you do. It will help everyone come together for the business at hand. It could surface some significant information, and it will add a little more glue to the bond that solidifies each one’s commitment to the others.

A Sunday school class ought to be about more than increased understanding of a biblical text. To be effective it must rub that passage against our lives. One way to do that is to help people talk to each other about ways they think the Spirit might want them to respond. A class could break into groups of three to five for exercises that help them get to know each other better, know the Bible better, and listen to God apply the Word to their hearts. Variations on this theme work in almost any age group. For instance, take an egg timer to a children’s class and let everyone have one minute. While the sand falls each one in turn can talk about the most fun he ever had, his favorite toy or best friend, or describe his mother or father. As the teacher, don’t forget to take your turn, too.

Many of us live in metropolitan areas where most everybody is from some place else. Often relatives live a considerable distance away, and neighbors seldom know each other. Houses are empty during the day and closed up during the evening. Many times I’ve heard neighbors say, “People will be out when it’s warmer.” But summer comes and, “People will be out when it gets cooler.” The reality is people don’t come out much at all. Relationships in the neighborhood, at the office, or at school are important. But if they don’t extend beyond the confines of that environment they have limited value. And the same is true of relationships at church. Hopefully, the believer will have friendships with some that extend beyond the confines of a church program.These relationships are necessary for us to not simply survive, but thrive in this Christian pilgrimage.

The Cost of Love

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Sigmund Freud argued that each individual has a limited quantity of love. Consequently, the more a person loves someone else, the less love he has for himself.Rollo May took issue with that position. He observed that when a person falls in love he feels more valuable and treats himself with more care. He further suggested that this inner sense of worth comes whether or not the love is reciprocated. He agreed with those who say that we are able to love others to the extent that we are able to love ourselves.

For some time I have maintained that love is elicited. The more we are loved, the greater our potential for love. If such is the case Freud has given us a half-truth. We do have a limited capacity for love.And May has given us a half-truth. To love someone who loves us in return is scary (we are giving without any assurance that we will receive), but it is invigorating nonetheless. It renews us, giving us an even greater capacity for love. But to love someone who does not return our love can drain us.

Love is commanded in the Scripture. I’ve often been asked how that command squares with my position. Usually behind the question is the assumption that since love is commanded it must be controlled by the will.Not necessarily. I may be able to will to treat you in a loving way. But love is always greater than the sum of its parts. The difference between doing loving things for you and feeling love for you may be subtle but it is there. And at times that difference can register in a profound way. For instance, parents may determine to treat all their children alike, yet love one more than another. Teachers may consciously try to not allow favoritism even though they are attracted to some students and possibly even repelled by others. In each case I suggest that the individuals involved are able to see the difference between loving acts and love itself.

Some might maintain that we never express love to another person without meeting some need of our own. But if there is a love that approximates the love of Jesus, it must be possible to love someone who either cannot or will not acknowledge our love. And to love such a person is costly. Because our resource of love is not restored in the process.

Are we able to pay the price? We are if we are receiving love. The Christian experiences regularly the love of Jesus through friends, worship, instruction from His book, prayer and reflection on what He has told us and done for us, especially during the tough times.

Are we willing to pay the price? That is a question that must be answered within the context of specific relationships. Can I love the son who has broken my heart? Can I love the student who I can’t seem to reach? Can I love the church member who seems to have so little to give to me? Or the neighbor who irritates me?

We know God’s answer. He loved us while we were his enemies. And we know God’s desire. He tells us to love each other the way he loves us.Suppose that we belong to Jesus and we are willing to try to love someone we haven’t been able to love. If love is more than doing loving things, how do we go about it?

I suggest first, that we try to get to know the person. That knowledge might put our feelings in a different perspective. If we still have “problems” with the person try to think about why we consider those things to be problems. That also could give us a different perspective. Risk talking about our feelings with the person. That must be done with great care remembering that our objective is not alienation but to break through the barriers that keep us from loving. Ask for God’s wisdom as well as the ability to love that person.As we love we are renewing and enlarging the ability of others to love. And as representatives of Jesus Christ our love enables others to feel His love.

Theodicy: Understanding the Goodness of God in the Midst of Evil

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Recently several people have asked our staff to recommend good material on theodicy. These inquiries may have arisen as the result of the September 11 tragedy in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. It is certainly natural and understandable that people would ask questions when events such as those occur.

We have been taught that God is wise, powerful, and good-that he rules his world completely. We have further been taught that God determines all things that come to pass. But the question surfaces: If God is good and all-powerful, why is there evil in his world? Is he really God? All-powerful? Good? Does he really rule his world? Where does he fit into the picture with all the bad things going on? And bottom line, we ask, How is it possible to reconcile the realities of life-sin, evil, and wickedness-with God’s all powerful and good rule? Theodicy is an attempt to justify and harmonize those things.

The problem is that we tend to approach this topic solely within the area of reason and logic. That is not all bad, but when we are talking about God, reason and logic have their limits because God transcends both. Even the notion of trying to justify God’s control puzzles us because if God is who he says he is, why do bad things continually happen to good people? And, we cannot cop out by saying there are no good people, true as that may be. It begs the real question that theodicy seeks to address. Historically people have tried to deal with this complex subject in many ways. The following four key explanations prevalent today will serve our purposes in this pr