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Join the Youthworks Ministry Support Team as they discuss how to have an effective youth and children’s ministry in every church in conversation with local ministry workers as well as national and international voices.
Get in touch - effectiveministrypodcast@youthworks.net
I am here with Cam Hart.
CAM is a children's ministry
advisor with YouthWorks and Cam.
You're here to talk about TMT.
What is TMT Training Ministry Teams
or TMT is an online platform for
children's youth ministers to access
training, content to use as you train
your leaders in your leadership teams.
TMT includes a range of modules from
ministry foundations, leading small
groups, running games, disability
inclusion, written particularly for you.
To use with your teams.
Uh, each module includes trainer
notes, leader handouts, PowerPoint
presentations, and we're about to
start recording some video content
to go along with each module.
There's been some developments in TMT?
Yes.
What's new in TMT?
Just in the last couple of
weeks, we have uploaded.
Three modules for Bible foundations to
help leaders understand the big story of
the Bible and how to teach that, uh, to
the children and youth in their ministry.
We've uploaded three brand new
youth ministry specific modules, and
there's a few more of those coming
out in the next few weeks as well.
And if you're a youth or a children's
leader, why would you care about this?
The idea behind TMT is that we want to
give children's and youth ministers access
to high quality training content that
they can use with their leadership team.
So that every time you wanna
run training, you don't need to
write the content from scratch.
And so you can have access to a
growing library of training content.
And if someone wanted to use TMT,
how would they find out more?
The easiest way?
Head to training ministry teams.com.
There you can see the available modules.
You can download a sample, uh,
and you can sign up to get access
to all of our training content.
When I think about the kids ministry
at our church and the churches
we've been part of, the goal that
we have always is to, to get.
It's to get our young people,
our young adults, um, to be
independently Christian, to have a
personal faith in the Lord Jesus.
I want that for my children more
than anything, and I want that
for the children that I work with.
Welcome back to the Effective Ministry
Podcast, the podcast that helps you
have an effective youth and children's
ministry in your local church.
I'm Al James, and today
is a special live episode.
It was recorded at the 2025
Mother's Union Sydney Seminar.
And in this conversation I had
the joy of talking with Beth
Bragga, , about helping kids stand
firm and stand out in their faith.
Uh, Beth is a passionate leader.
She's an experienced parent, and
she's someone who spent years
helping families nurture deep lasting
faith in their kids, both her own
family and then the families that.
She's been involved with, uh, in the
various churches she's been part of.
Uh, Beth brings a wealth of practical
wisdom and strong biblical grounding,
and I know that you'll find her insights.
Really valuable, just as I did
as I got to share with her.
Uh, together, Beth and I will
be exploring how to help kids
have a strong personal faith.
, and some of the things we'll be talking
about is intergenerational discipleship
opportunities to serve, and then
integrating faith into every day, not
just a Sunday so that young people will
have a coherent and lifelong faith.
And make sure that you join us next time.
We're gonna be doing a special q and a
episode where, uh, a bunch of us from
the ministry support team at YouthWorks
will be answering some of your questions
about ministry with young people.
So thanks for tuning in.
Let's jump straight into
the conversation with Beth.
our final session, we're going to be
party to a conversation between these two.
Uh, so Al is a father of four.
He's got it evenly spread.
He's got two girls and two boys.
He works at YouthWorks in the area
of children, and youth, spent a lot
of time over the years working in
different churches in the multicultural
context and also churches that,
um, don't have many resources.
Beth here comes with a wealth
of experience and wisdom as
the mother of eight children.
She's also the creator of
the program, It's Music Time.
Many people in Sydney would know that
program because it's run in playgroups.
It's a structured music program for
preschoolers and their families.
I guess you can start first, Beth.
Thanks.
Um, in a sentence, what is standing
out and standing firm for you?
I think it's not being, um, blown
about, but really holding on firmly
to what you believe and then that
shines out in, in how you live.
What about for you, Al?
I think for me, it's being reminded or
reminding myself from the scriptures
and from the people around me, all
the, the incredible and wonderful
and beautiful things that Jesus is.
And I think that.
That spurs me on to want to stand firm
and to stand out and show that to people.
Excellent.
All right, we'll hand over to
you two for our final session.
Thank you.
Al, let's get straight into it.
Why are you here?
What's your connection to this topic?
Yeah.
So, um, when I was a youth group
leader in the early two thousands,
um, I poured my life and my time and
my resources and energy into a bunch
of, you know, teenagers, um, and some
of them are still walking with Jesus.
And some of them, I'm still walking the
journey with them, which is incredible,
but, um, maybe too many of them, I
would say, uh, are no longer with Jesus.
And I think that that kind of perplexed
me, it, it worried me, it baffled me
because I'd poured all that time in.
Um, I'm now a youth ministry advisor,
uh, in the Western region of Sydney
and I see similar stories happening.
And the other angle I bring to it
is that I'm now a parent and what I
want for my kids more than anything
is that they stick with Jesus.
That's the thing that I want for them.
I want them to stand firm.
I want them to be distinctive
Christians as well.
But the fourth angle is that I've
had an opportunity to do some
research around this topic of what
helps young people stick with Jesus.
So that's my connection.
What about you, Beth?
Well, I think I come in from the,
from the parent perspective and also
from the kids ministry perspective.
I've been involved in kids
ministry for a long time.
And when I think about the kids
ministry at our church and the
churches we've been part of, the goal
that we have always is to, to get.
It's to get our young people,
our young adults, um, to be
independently Christian, to have a
personal faith in the Lord Jesus.
I want that for my children more
than anything, and I want that
for the children that I work with.
Um, and so, you know, it's all about
putting in place steps to help,
um, and you know, and pray that we
can do that, and I love to do that.
Awesome.
So, over to you Beth now.
Well, I was going to say, I don't
know about you, Al, but as a parent,
I spend a lot of time setting in place
things so that my kids can learn stuff.
Can you cook dinner?
Can you cook a dinner?
I had one fail where my son
thought he could cook and in
our youth hostel in France.
So, my goal in life is,
can you cook a dinner?
Can you use the washing machine?
Can you budget a little bit?
So we've got those kind of goals,
education kind of goals, but I think
sometimes we think about those things a
lot, but we don't think about how can we
equip our children in the Christian space.
And I think that's really what we
want to talk about today, isn't it?
So.
So, why do we need to do
this, do you think, Al?
I think two reasons.
Number one, um, the church, God has
given responsibility to the church and
also to families, parents, households,
that young people should live Christian
lives, that they should submit their
lives to Jesus and live that out.
So, I mean, it is our creational
responsibility for that, number one.
But number two, um, there has been a
whole, a bunch of research over the
last two, two and a half, three decades.
That shows that there's been a
significant drop off in faith and
in church attendance in the West.
And so, we think about America, um,
Barna, which is a research group,
they say that the number could be as
high as 64 percent of young people
that were previously Christian were
no longer identifying that way.
Fuller Youth Institute puts it
around the 40 to 50 percent mark.
In Australia, there is research that says
that up to 72% of people that at age 11
were engaged in Christian programs by the
end of their 20s were no longer calling
themselves Christians or at church.
And so no matter how you cut the
mustard, there is an issue in the West
of young people dropping off in faith.
In Sydney, the, the figure that we've
got floating around is 35 percent
dropout, which sounds a little bit
better than the 72 percent nationally.
But, that is actually a measure of, um,
the children of people that go to church.
What that 35 percent doesn't take into
account is those that are, um, not
from Christian families, but also the
way in which the stats are kind of put
together, it doesn't include people
that are no longer living at home.
So when you kind of include those things,
we don't have the stats, but it's possibly
edging up to the 35%, uh, sorry, the 72%.
And so.
So, we've got an issue over the last
couple of decades of young people
increasingly dropping out of faith and
so it's something we need to think about.
So why do you think that is happening?
Like, what is causing
that massive drop off?
Yeah, so I've had a chance to look at
the kind of literature, um, and to do
some of my own research as well and we
think we can point to three reasons.
There's a bunch of other things as
well and they're all overlapping
and interconnected but first of all
is that there is a shallow faith.
In the young people themselves.
Um, second, uh, the role of
families and where families are
not a vibrant hub of faith that
is detrimental to long term faith.
I mean, these things, it doesn't
sound like rocket science.
Right?
Um, and then the third thing
is where young people are
segregated and disconnected
from the broader body of Christ.
And so those three things
seem to be what's going on.
So just quickly with shallow faith.
Yes.
Um, the, uh, Kinnaman who's from.
Barna, he says, the next generation's
disconnection from church and faith
stems ultimately from the failure of
the church to impart Christianity as a
comprehensive way of understanding reality
and living fully in today's culture.
So it looks like no room for doubts.
Um, it looks like young people feeling
pressure to make a decision for Christ,
but not being ready to, because they
haven't sorted it out in their mind.
It looks like a shallow
understanding of, of theology.
And so not having a, a depth of, uh,
of understanding and it looks like that
lack of connection between the Christian
faith and the life lived in the world.
So that might look like, for example,
a young person saying, well, if I'm
going to be Christian, do I have
to hate my gay friends or do I have
to hate my transgender friends?
Um, and so the, the disconnection
between the faith that they profess and
the life that they might need to live.
So that's the shallow faith thing.
That's very tricky, isn't it?
Like, it's, yes, we, we see it on the
top of what people are, they, they've
heard it but it hasn't really taken
root and that's the problem, right?
And then the next thing is families
not being vibrant hubs of faith and I
say this with trepidation because we
know that the research paints broad
brush, um, broad brushes, looks at
broad trends but it doesn't tell the
stories of individual families and so
You know, let the reader understand.
We don't know what's happening
in individual families, but
broadly, where families exclusively
outsource their discipleship to,
um, to age specific ministries, oh
yep, just go to the youth group.
That's my job done.
Um, or where they don't talk about
God at home, uh, they don't talk about
the big issues that young people are
facing, whether it's to do with, um,
society and culture, or whether it's
to do with things going on at school,
or things going on in family, where
they don't talk about those things.
That's detrimental to faith.
And we've already talked about doubts,
where people in the home don't take
doubts of young people seriously,
that's also detrimental to faith.
And then the third thing is this
idea of segregation and disconnection
from the broader body of Christ.
So our churches, over the last 30 years,
40 years, 50 years, have focused on,
um, uh, the homogenous unit principle.
Let's put people together who are alike.
And there are some really
good things about that.
So being able to speak to teenagers
and children about what it's like to
be a follower of Jesus as a teenager
or a child, that's a really good thing.
But when that focus has meant, has
been at the cost of connection to
the broader body of Christ, that
then becomes detrimental to faith.
A friend of mine talks about
the idea of, you know, we're the
body of Christ, but the left arm,
they're just off in that other room.
You know, the metaphor doesn't
work if, if that's the case.
No, we, we need to work together
and, and that's across ages and
generations as well as, uh, other
differences that we may have.
We need to work together, right?
But I do have a problem.
What's your problem, Beth?
Well, my problem is I, there are still,
uh, people from families who have
vibrant faith, who, um, Uh, you know,
involving children in, um, more than
just cursory conversations, they don't
outsource their Christian teaching to
the church, um, but they really take
on board and live an everyday Christian
life and it's really authentic.
And there are still children and young
people who choose to walk away from Jesus.
So your question is, there are families
that tick all those boxes, vibrant
families, uh, vibrant hubs of faith,
they're connected to the broader body
of Christ, they have a deep faith.
And yet, they still might
not continue on in faith.
Yes.
What do we need to be thinking about?
Well, I really think we
need, at this point, to think
about the sovereignty of God.
Because, um, we want to do, and I think
really, the rest of our talk is really
talking about, well, what can we do?
Because we want to be positive.
Um, what can we do?
But I think we need to think,
actually, a lot of it is up to God.
So I think, number one
thing we can do is pray.
Um, it's not up to us.
It's up to God.
and the decision that these
young people make, and we need
to pray about that so much.
Um, I, it was struck this
week, uh, in, in church.
Our sermon was on, um, Matthew
22 to, uh, verses 1 to 22.
That was very neat.
Um, and it was about the invitations
to the wedding or the banquet.
And, you know, they go out to people.
And so you may have clearly explained
the gospel to your children.
You may have, you know, involved them
with church activities, they've gotten
on camps, they've, um, they've got
Christian friends, your friends, your
Christian friends have really adopted
them as well, so they've got extra
aunties and uncles, you've got all of
those things, and your children may
still say, I don't want to go to the
banquet, um, which is gut wrenching, but
we need to depend on God, and I think
that's really the heart of it, isn't it?
So, even though we've got all these
things, and we want to set things out.
So our children can, uh, remain solid
and strong in the faith, stand firm,
um, we still have to, we have to
trust God and pray and pray and pray.
And a bit more pray.
And a bit more pray.
Yeah, because we really do believe in
the sovereignty of God and I've, I've
highlighted in my notes here that, you
know, we're about to launch into the
strategies that families and churches
can kind of engage in, in order to
help young people stick with faith.
But this, I've, I've
underlined under God, okay?
It's really hard, it's, it's, I should say
it's easy to make it token, but we want
to recognize that anything that we say
from here on in is, it's under God, we, we
submit it to His hands and, uh, and He, He
will do what He will do and so we want to,
want to be faithful but it's under God.
And if I may say, and we may not see
the fruit or the, uh, answer that
we would love to these prayers for
10, 20, 30, 40, we may never see
them, but we keep praying, don't we?
And be faithful in our prayers,
even when our children, our
children are still our children.
My mom's here and I'm 52, so I'm,
she's still praying for me and,
uh, she will, she will do always.
So I, that's what we've got to do.
We've got to keep praying.
Absolutely.
And so, all of it's under God
and yet there are some strategies
that the literature and the
research seems to point to.
Um, and so the first of those is this.
So what, what correlates with
long term thriving faith?
Number one is
intergenerational discipleship.
Okay?
So the disconnection from
the body of Christ is bad.
It doesn't help.
But intergenerational discipleship
is a really, really helpful thing.
That's where the, the, the generations
are connected with one another.
To put some flesh on the bones of
that, Fuller Youth Institute in a
book called, uh, Sticky Faith written
in 2011, still really helpful now,
talk about the five to one ratio.
Okay, in kids ministry we talk about
safety ratios, you know, you need
to have this, um, this many leaders.
for this many kids.
This is talking about for every
young person, let's, let's aim to
have five adults that are genuinely
interested in and encouraging
the faith of this young person.
Um, and that has been, you know, that's
one of the strongest correlations
with retention of faith long term.
Um, and, you know, a story of that, and
I think the reason for that is they've
got examples of people around them, um,
that they're seeing live out the faith.
in the everyday setting.
An example of this, a really kind of
wonderful idea I heard about was a youth
minister who got invited to a kind of
rite of passage ceremony kind of thing.
It was in the family
home of a 13 year old.
The dad had invited him, um, and
a whole bunch of other people that
were interested in the discipleship
of this 13 year old, um, to come
and share a Bible verse with him.
And so they went around the circle,
they shared the Bible verse.
Encouraged him.
And then at the end of of them all
sharing, they'd all highlighted that
verse in the Bible and they handed
the Bible to this young person.
And what they were saying was, we're here.
My hand is up.
Um, I wanna be here to
encourage you in your faith.
Um, and that's huge.
Um.
Have you got stories?
Well, I do have, I always have stories.
I do have stories.
I, I think for me, personally, I was
thinking of a story about myself,
actually, and, um, what was really
powerful for me was having, there
were people in, in our church when
I was growing up who were kind of
the next generation, um, they maybe
were student ministers or working
in apprenticeships with the church,
and they ran Christian camps and
invited myself and my cousin along.
It was so powerful to me, like,
just, uh, having those people, they
were really high in the trust bank.
I knew who they were, um, they gave
me confidence in what they said,
and I remember this really clear
moment where, um, in the talks, I
mean, I never remember anything, but
in the talks, I'm 15 years old, and
they said, the Bible is one story.
It's God's plan, and you see
God's plan worked out, and it
was like this ah ha moment.
And Beth, your parents had
never said that before?
Never, ever, ever.
No, it's a joke.
They had said it, they would have
said it, but I had this a ha moment
and it was great to have that
backed up what my parents said,
so it's more people in your life.
And it aligns with developmentally,
we know that as young people hit the
age 11, we know that they're looking
for mentors outside of the home.
And so it accords, who would have
thought that the way in which God has
created young people to be wired actually
um, accords with a biblical view of
what discipleship would look like.
Do you know, I have a Another story,
the um, one of our children, um, the,
the youngest one, in fact, she goes
to youth group and the youth group
leader comes up to me on a Sunday and
she goes, Beth, I cannot believe the
number of questions your child has.
Why isn't she asking you?
And I said, because you're
important and I am not.
So I really am not.
I'm nodding a little
bit too vigorously here.
Empathizing, right?
Yeah.
Um, and I'm not important, she
said, but I don't know the answers.
I said, well, I can help
you with that bit, but she
doesn't wanna hear it from me,
. It's true.
She speaks the truth.
Important.
She does.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So important.
So that's intergenerational discipleship.
Okay.
So what are some other, what are some
other steps, Al, that we can be doing?
I've lost where we are in our outline.
I'm sorry, I just up to here.
Number two, giving opportunities to serve.
Um, so intergenerational
discipleship is key.
Um, giving opportunities to serve as well.
So this is another key step.
Um, and in my own research, um, the
strongest correlation that there
were a whole bunch of variables I
looked at with, uh, with thriving
faith and long term faith.
The number one was where young
people were share, had shared
the gospel with somebody else.
Um, so that's an aspect of the
serving kind of element there.
Um, so where, and you know, where young
people are able to make meaningful
contributions to the life and faith
of others, that is very significant
for long term and lasting faith.
It's so amazing.
And we have a, um, junior leaders
program at church and it's for kids.
and up.
So they finished our kind of
morning program and I'm imagining
parents think I'm not leaving
my year nine child at home.
And so we run this training
program, but what has been super
cool about it is two things.
Number one, the first thing that's been
super cool is last year I've been trying
and trying to work out how to get kids
to set, to explain what they believe.
And we had a real win last year.
I have a two question testimony
that they did, which is.
is when did you become a Christian,
or when did you decide to follow
Jesus, and what difference does
it make having Jesus as your King?
Okay, so super simple, and they, um, I
am a teacher in, sometimes in my life,
and uh, we did think, pair, share.
So we did that with a friend, and then
they went around and did it with different
friends before they said it to the group.
And unlike other years, they were able
to articulate that, and it was wonderful
to hear, uh, I believe, because.
or this has been significant to me
because, so that's been fantastic.
Yeah, and that opportunity for them
to, to step into, to take that, that
faith that they've got to then step
into a serving kind of role is huge.
Um, and part of the reason it's huge,
well, I should say, um, again, Chap
Clark, who, he, he, he was involved in
Fuller Youth Institute, um, when they
were writing about this kind of thing.
He talked about the idea
of, um, contributing.
Uh, purpose.
Okay, so they say there's no silver
bullet when it comes to faith
retention, but if there were silver
shavings, it'd be intergenerational
discipleship and young people serving.
And he calls it contributing purpose.
That is, a young person is not just,
you know, a Christian in waiting or
is not just a minister in waiting,
you know, someone to do ministry or to
serve in waiting, but they are genuinely
part of the family of Christ now.
And so where they have.
Those genuine opportunities to speak into
and to contribute to the life and faith
of others, they are much more likely to
buy into the body of Christ long term.
It, it also accords with the secular
research around motivation as well.
Again, what God says about the
way the world works, accords
with how the world works.
So that's an interesting thing.
So it's not your church.
It's our church.
Yeah.
And it's our church.
When you are.
10 months old and it's our
church when you are 90 years old.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, and so for parents,
we've got a couple of ideas.
I do.
So, uh, a couple of things that I've
seen that they've been super effective
have been, um, we, we have a family at
church actually, who, uh, homeschools
their children and what they've done
is their kids, uh, they wanna be
part of a weekly, a weekday ministry,
um, with their younger children.
And so.
They're older children
come along and serve.
So they help with their morning
tea, they help pack up, it's a
playgroup, so they help pack up, set
up, all of those kinds of things.
Or other families have been kids
working alongside with them on the
morning tea roster, uh, whether it's
baking things at home and then serving
other people or cleaning up, those
kind of things, which is super cool.
Yeah, fantastic.
And, um, one of the things that
Beth and I reflected on as we were
preparing is that these things,
helping your young person to serve.
Um, whether that's in the church or in
some other, you know, in a church related
role or some other behind the scenes
things, it may actually take effort.
So if they're serving in kids
ministry, for example, that might
mean that you might need to drop
them off, um, and, you know, at a
time that is inconvenient for you.
But I guess we were thinking
a little bit about all the
extracurricular stuff that we do.
Yeah, well, you're, most likely people are
taking their children to sport activities
or to, you know, to this or to that and so
why shouldn't we be doing that for church,
in fact, even more so, so we have families
who drop off their children for 8.
30 church to serve in our kids, in
our kids programs, so their junior
leaders coming to serve and their
congregation, the whole family
is at night, but it's going out
of your way to do that, isn't it?
Yeah, and I think it's easy for us to
kind of, uh, particularly with, with
the, uh, the younger children who
are serving in some way at my church.
There's a big focus in younger
children having upfront roles
as they're, uh, developmentally
able and as it's appropriate.
Um, one of the things that I
notice when, uh, for example, my,
my daughter led the service with
me one day, which was fantastic.
What, one of the things that I
noticed is that the feedback that
she then gets from the congregation,
um, can you guess what they say?
They say you did so well or you, so you
spoke so well, or that kind of thing.
And I just wanna say that is really
lovely and encouraging, but it
runs the risk of tokenizing what my
daughter was doing that day, which
was genuinely serving and contributing
to the life and faith of others.
So when I noticed that, um, and this can
be something for all of you where you
see young people serving in the church.
Um, I made a mental note that
day to ensure that the feedback
or the encouragement that I give
is much more along the lines of,
thank you so much for the way in
which you served our church today.
When a young people, person reads the
Bible, um, before the sermon and someone,
you know, and, and a preacher gets up,
how good when they say, you read that
so well, which really enabled us to
engage in the Word of God today, rather
than tokenizing it as, wasn't that
wonderful pat on the, pat on the head.
So, just a mental note for
all of us in that regard.
I think also serving can look like coming
with you to clean the church building.
Um, it can be, um,
helping on the sound desk.
It doesn't have to be up
front things, does it?
And I think, but we still need to have
words of encouragement, but words of
encouragement about thank you for serving.
You know, we appreciate
you serving with us.
Yeah.
That kind of thing.
And when kids do serve.
So, lo and behold, that increases
intergenerational discipleship as well.
So we're ticking two boxes
in one, which is fantastic.
I love that.
So intergenerational discipleship,
um, what was the second one?
Serving?
We've just been talking about.
Serving.
And then home.
We're talking about home, right?
So what can we do at home to help,
you know, bring this all together?
Yeah.
And there is a book called
Handing Down the Faith, written by
Christian Smith and Amy Adamchig.
And this is, you know, um, Um, this
is large scale research in America
looking at what are the practices in
the home and in, in faith communities
that lead to, um, children taking up and
continuing on the faith of their parents.
And the number one correlation that
they had, um, with the practices
in the home and retention of faith
long term was this, is that when,
when you talk about God at home.
Again, I feel silly saying this,
but when you talk about God at home,
now, um, I'm not going to shame
anyone and say, you know, do you
do family devotions in your home?
Um, don't put your hand up because
I know that that can be tricky and
I want to really encourage that.
Um, we try our best in our home.
We don't always do a great job,
but interestingly what this
research talks about, as good as
that is, it's talking about the
impromptu, ad hoc, informal moments.
That in the household, whether it's
parents, brothers and sisters, whether
it's grandparents that are part of the
household or part of the family as well,
they're taking up those opportunities
to bring God into the every, every day.
Do you know, Al, I read last night a
story of a young person who had exactly
that experience that is, in their first
11 years of their life, um, church
for them was a Sunday thing and then
you kind of, I guess they had the car
park miracle, you know, you drive in
and then everything's amazing, um, and
so they had that experience and then
they left church and never should be
mentioned again until the next week,
um, and then something changed in their
family and their parents were converted
and the change that meant that That
Christianity wasn't just about Sunday.
It was about everything and thinking
about how it fitted in all of life.
And that was part of this
person's journey to faith.
Which 100 percent accords with, um, the
writers of this book, that they, they,
you know, they, they can't tell for
sure exactly what the dynamic is here.
But their best guess is exactly that,
that where, uh, where faith is, you
know, squished off to just the Sunday.
Then that's detrimental
to long term faith.
But when it's brought into the
rest of the week, then it's very
significant for long term faith.
So you mean in those 600 hours of
driving I've done with my old platers?
That's lots of opportunities, so
far, uh, that's lots of opportunities
for conversation and, and all
over the place, just, you know,
they come in and it's always at 11
o'clock at night with a teenager.
Yep, absolutely.
My, my son has just turned 16, my oldest,
and so I'm just about to engage on that.
And, and it, it, it's not
just from the research, right?
So we look at the research and this is
what the research tells us, but when
you read Deuteronomy 6, which I happen
to have bookmarked here, Um, it says
this, these commandments that I give
you today are to be on your hearts.
And then verse seven, impress
them on your children.
Talk about them when you sit at
home and when you walk along the
road, when you lie down and when you
get up and then it goes on and on.
But this is the kind of
discipleship that is being talked
about here in this passage.
It's not the only kind of
discipleship, but it is.
This every day, all the time in
every circumstance, discipleship
you, you bring God into the
every day because he guess what?
He is there.
He's in the every day and he's relevant
and it's a coherent thing to do.
And so we wanna do that
as much as possible.
It's reading the hungry Caterpillar
and going, wow, isn't God amazing?
He made caterpillars that
turn into butterflies.
You can start when they're tiny people.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, and one of the brilliant quotes
that I love from the book is that
faith conversations rarely started
there, but they always ended up there.
And so you wind your way from the
Hungry Caterpillar to God, or from
the friendship dramas to God, or from
what's going on in global politics to
God, um, and God is in the everyday.
I've got one little tip, I guess.
Yes.
Should I share it?
Of course.
Okay.
Um, how do you do this?
Well, I mean, you just do it at one
level, but there is, um, a brilliant
tool for bringing God into the everyday
and Steve McAlpin talked earlier about,
you catch it and, uh, you know, you
catch faith and you, and you catch,
actually you catch everything, you
know, you catch what's, what the, the
culture is telling us, that frozen is
discipling us and that kind of thing.
And so, this brilliant tool for what,
um, the, the authors of Faith for
Exiles call cultural discernment, okay?
So being able to read culture, being
able to understand what's part of the
culture of the world, and how that's
different to the culture of the king.
They've got these three simple questions
for every, every time you watch a
TV show, or read a book, or, you
know, think about the New South Wales
education system, or whatever it is.
First question is this,
where is God in this?
Or who or what is God in this?
So where is God?
Second question is what does this
say about the way the world works?
And what does it say about
the way the world works?
And then thirdly where
is hope or redemption?
If at all?
And those three questions, and I usually
just get stuck on the first question,
but those three questions launch you
from the culture But, you know, worm
your way into talking about God.
Um, and I've had this conversation with
my own kids about, you know, Minecraft.
You know, who is God in Minecraft?
That's a, ooh, interesting question.
That is kind of very deep actually.
Yeah.
And I've had, I've had conversations
with seven year olds and five year olds.
I've had conversations with 16 year olds
and 25 year olds, all surrounding these
questions, which have been really helpful.
That's fantastic.
I, I think the other thing is too,
we want to, um, create habits.
So I, I think that can
be very powerful as well.
So we have the, the incidental
moments, it's intertwined
in every part of your life.
And that is what it is to
be a believer, is it not?
It is part of everything.
Um, but then there are also habits.
And so, um.
We have a couple of ways of
describing habits in our house.
We had a conversation with friends
once about saying grace, and they said
we don't want to say grace unless our
children are truly thankful for dinner.
And I said, well, my children will
never be truly thankful for my dinner.
So, we're just going to say it
every time, and hopefully that will
become a habit, and a good habit.
Um, and I think the other one
is thinking about, Um, things
that you think are important.
So if you think that it's an important
part of your faith, an expression
of your faith to meet with believers
regularly, then you need to make
that choice and stick with it.
You don't choose every
day to brush your teeth.
You know that brushing your teeth is
good and that you have decided, hopefully
if you're not 16, you have decided
that you brush your teeth every day.
It should be like that for church.
You've decided it's important, you go.
It's not, well, we go this week, or
there might be something better on.
The sports trials are on,
the dancing competitions on,
oh, it's a birthday party.
It's always something, and none of those
are bad, but it's cumulative, isn't it?
Absolutely, and so we want to make
sure that wherever we can, however
we can, with the young people in our
lives, in our homes, in our households,
and in the broader body of Christ,
we're actually talking about God.
Now, Al, do you think, it's not always
straightforward, and I think, and, I don't
know about you, but I, at different times
in my life, have had questions and doubts.
Do we need to make room for that as well?
How do we put that in?
Yeah, and we've talked about
doubts, um, a reasonable amount,
and I think we absolutely need
to make, um, space for doubts.
And I think that's part of the
whole talking about God thing.
And in a moment, we'll talk about the
way in which, um, some of these things
draw, um, uh, these threads draw together,
but I think, you know, spoiler alert.
So, um, talking about God at home makes
faith real and livable and robust and
coherent because it's not just the
thing that happens on Sundays, um, and
so in that same vein, um, we want to
be talking in such a way that there is
space for doubts in our young people.
Um, uh, a story that happened in my own
home a little while ago, my 13 year old
son was experiencing some doubts, um,
and he shared these doubts with my wife.
And this is kind of a self
gratification moment, actually.
My wife relayed the story to me later.
She said, well, Dad would
say, doubts are great.
And I just had this moment of,
oh, praise God, there is room
for doubts in our household.
And the reason that's so important is
because we don't want a shallow faith.
We want a tested faith.
We want a coherent and genuine faith.
And where, and we know
that this is the truth.
Where doubts are dismissed.
where they're squashed, where they're
gotten rid of, um, it actually is
a, is a squashed opportunity for
young people to wrestle with faith.
The developmental psychology
tells us that young people are
trying on identities all the time.
Um, and there's, uh, there's this
moment that happens with, with any
aspect of identity where they form
a resilient sense of identity.
Only after they've wrestled with
that aspect of identity, and so
it's no different for faith as well.
Okay, so we want young people to
move from a, you know, a faith of the
family to an owned faith, and that
can only happen where there's been
significant and genuine wrestling.
Um, well actually I shouldn't
say it can only happen that way.
That's true because there
are lots of different ways.
Oh, excuse me.
But I think The other thing
I was thinking, Al, was also
challenges to your faith.
Um, I know that the school I went to in
high school, um, although Christian was
somewhat liberal at the time, kind of had
a very broad interpretation of the Bible,
and for me, that was formative, actually.
Um, it may not have been what my
parents were hoping for, but it was
formative because I had to ask questions.
Is that what I believe?
Oh, do I agree with that?
The chaplain said it, let me check
what the Bible says, and I was able to
talk about that and question it myself.
Like, was I going to accept
what, um, what this person said?
Was I going to check the Bible?
Did I, and I asked my family,
I asked my youth group leaders.
So for me, that was super
formative, um, and challenging.
And it's not straight down the
line, laid out, all fantastic.
It was a challenging moment.
And so if the home is not an avenue that
you can do some of that testing, That can
be really detrimental to faith, long term.
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Okay, Al.
Yep.
We need to pull it all together.
Yep.
I've looked at the time.
So, overall, we know
that God is sovereign.
Mm hmm.
So, I just want to say that again.
God is sovereign.
He has all of our, our family,
our children, the people
in your lives in His hand.
And we need to pray for
people, uh, and pray for them.
That is the first and foremost
thing we need to do, um, and
a continued dependence on God.
But after that, we've got things that we
can do to help set them on the right path.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so if we're going to draw those,
those sort of three things we've
looked at, the intergenerational
discipleship, giving opportunities to
serve and talking about God at home.
For drawing those three things together,
my current thesis, I think it's a good
one, I'm really curious to hear your
thoughts about it as well, is that those
three things are significant, because
what they do is they, they, they, uh, they
give young people an opportunity to both
see and live a robust, coherent, livable
faith that actually works in the world.
As we think about intergenerational
discipleship, there's a team of people.
around them that are living out
this faith in a genuine way.
And so young people can see others, and
so the plausibility structures are there.
Um, that these people genuinely take
this faith seriously, I can too.
Um, we think about serving, that's an
opportunity for young people not to
just believe the things and see other
people kind of believe this genuine
and robust faith, but It's a moment for
them to, um, to live that out, okay?
So when someone, when a young person
articulates the gospel to a friend,
they're not going to do that, and they're
not going to take up that opportunity
unless, um, it's a robust, livable faith
that they can kind of take out of the
Sunday and bring to the rest of the world.
Um, but it's really significant
when they get to practice that.
And then if we think about talking
about God at home, similar to the
intergenerational discipleship,
um, we've got these moments.
Not just with the community or with,
with these, maybe these five people that
are interested, but also in the home,
which is such an important place, where
parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers,
the household, um, are living out and
genuinely living this faith, and they
are showing that it's coherent, that
it works, that it's So this idea, these
three things, they point to the idea that
young people need a robust, coherent, and
livable faith that works in the world.
And just a quick story,
I think we've got time.
We do, we do.
Um, uh, I used to be
a high school teacher.
Uh, I was teaching on the Northern Beaches
and one day I took a Year 12 cover.
And, uh, we were having banter
because that's sometimes what happens
when I don't care about the content
as much as their actual teacher.
And so, um, they were talking about
who is a Westie, which is a really
live issue on the Northern Beaches.
Me.
I live in Penrith.
And, and they were saying, if you don't
get the Manly Daily, you're a Westie.
And they were saying, if you live west
of Pittwater Road, you're a Westie.
And of course, teachable moment, high
school teacher, I'm a lifelong educator,
I just took that moment to kind of go, you
do realise that the Northern Beaches can
at times be an insular and racist place.
And they went, yeah, yeah,
yeah, because she's racist.
And I looked up the line and she goes,
yeah, yeah, yeah, because I'm racist.
And I went, what?
And she said, yeah, yeah.
I mean, on the mission trip, and then
explained about how all these people
of different cultures were around on
the mission trip, and how terrible that
was, and I was totally thrown, because
on the one hand, she's on the mission
trip, she's professing to be a Christian,
and on the other hand, she's professing
to be a racist, and I just couldn't
compute, and so I thought about that
for a long time, and I think what she
was doing, was she was She was not able
to tell the difference between Northern
Beaches culture and Christian culture.
She was confining the demands of
Christianity to the, to the kind
of corners of her life and allowing
the, the, the culture of her time
or in her place to come to the fore.
She was not in a place where she had a
robust, coherent, it was not coherent
at all that faith, livable faith.
I pray to God that she
has moved on from that.
That she has a genuine and
coherent faith that, you know,
the scriptures speak into it.
Um, but that was, and so what I'm
saying is we need young people to
have the opportunity to have a robust,
coherent, livable faith that really
actually can be deployed in the
world, that can work in the world.
Um, so intergenerational discipleship,
um, opportunities to serve.
Now, just before we finish, we have really
mainly talked about standing firm and
what does it look like to stand firm.
And I think there's a beautiful
synergy between standing firm and
standing, shining out, um, which
is that if you stand firm in the
generation that we live, in the times
we live, you will be standing out.
Um, if you stand firm for the gospel,
we've had conversations with, um, some of
our high school students at home, which.
They have to interact with their
peers, obviously, they want
to interact with their peers.
And it's taking those moments and hearing
them come home and say, well, we were
talking about this particular issue.
And I said, well, that's
not what the Bible says.
And you think that's standing out, she's
standing firm and standing out because
she is going against popular opinion
against the tide and standing out.
And I think that's what we want.
We want children and
young adults and adults.
We want you to be able to do that.