The House

Over the last couple of the weeks I've been working on a catchy way to communicate my philosophy of ministry to folks in our ministry and in the church. Most of the time I'm not good at coming up with this sort of thing. My pride often gets in the way. I tend to think that I'm intellectually superior to those types of things. Catchy stuff is often trite and I think that it's silly to think that you can reduce the Christian life down to a slogan or motto. But as I work with my pastor, Dan Williams, I'm starting to see why this sort of thing is needed. Here's our work so far.

Here's our purpose statement.
CBC youth ministry seeks to enjoy God in the building and expanding of His family of Christ-followers.

We've tagged our group with the name Renovation. So we've using the illustration of a house.

Every house needs a foundation. The foundation is the very beginning of every building project. The same thing is true with the church. And there's only one foundation to the church and that's Jesus. As Paul writes in 1 Cor 3:10-11, "By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ." Thus, the foundation of our youth ministry needs to teaching students to follow Jesus Christ. This process is often called discipleship.

Every house needs a roof. The roof is built out of trusts that tie everything in the house together. The roof also points upward. And that's why we are using the roof of the house to illustrate worship. John Piper puts it so well, "God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him." That's what the church is all about.

That leaves us with the walls. In our illustration, the walls represent building and expanding God's family. The walls of a house are made up of individual 2- by-4's. Of course, those individual boards don't mean anything until they are tied in the foundation and the roof of house. That's true with us as well. So as a youth group, we want to be about building each other up through fellowship. That's what it means to be God's family. We also want to reach out to others through evangelism. Since Jesus is the most glorious, joy-giving person in the universe, we want to share Him with others. That's what the Great Commission is all about.

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matt. 28:16-20.

This leads us to a couple of questions.

1. What is God's responsibility when it comes to the church?

• The Father is the Designer of the house (Architect).
• The Son is the Provider for the house (the Lumberyard).
• The Holy Spirit is the Owner of the house (He lives there).

2. What is our responsibility when it comes to the church?

• To follow the design of the Father.
• To use the provision from the Son.
• To submit to the intentions of the Owner.

Well, that's what I've done so far. Yeah, it's kinda trite, but I hope that it helps parents and kids understand why we do youth group in the way that we do.