This seems like a good day to talk about "Youth Ministry":
1. Youth Ministry has been an absolute failure.
2. It turns out, removing children from the Divine Service (which God instituted), their parents, and the sacraments; and placing them in some age segregated quasi-service (that God did not institute), lead by a quasi-Pastor, only produces quasi-Christians.
3. But because a series of Cottage Industries have cropped up around this position, many Christians don't even think about questioning the validity of Children's Church.
4. The entire basis of Children's Church is focused on the idea that kids cannot understand the Sermon being preached from the pulpit, so they must be taught elsewhere. There are a few issues with this:
-Kids pick up more than you know.
-This is based on the faulty assumption that the main thing that is taking place in the service is a lecture to be grasped.
-This is often used to hide the much uglier truth that adults have grown to despise the sound of children in the congregation.
5. Further, the lack of wisdom in placing children outside of the care of the parents and grandparents, handing them over to some dork who thinks that "Youth Pastor" is a real thing, and letting them be trained up by their peers rather than by mature Christians is breathtaking.
6. We must remember how Youth Ministries started. They started in England as a way to reach Non-Christian children who could not be catechized by their parents (many were orphans). But even in the beginning, there was a great deal of backlash against the movement. Because Christians realized that if they continue to do this:
-We would start using Youth Ministries for actual Christian children which would lead to their removal from the Divine Service
-Eventually, Parents would stop catechizing their own children and would leave that to the "Youth Pastor"
Both of those things happened.
7. Finally, this has been an obvious disaster for the church. At the same time that Youth Ministry was ascending in the church, we saw greater and greater numbers of our children apostatizing.
The answer is not more Youth Ministry. The answer is the God-ordained Divine Service, faithful parents catechizing their children, access to the saving waters of baptism and the true body and blood of Jesus Christ.
If you’ve never lived with an unrepentant reviling wife who burned down your marriage, or worked with a white knight cuck Pastor who handed her a flame thrower or had to deal with the corrupt family law court who kidnapped your own kids from you plus bankrupted you financially, you probably don’t know what an Imprecatory prayer is.
If you’ve dealt with 1 of those you probably do. If you’ve dealt with all 3 of those, it’s nearly certain you do.
Excited to receive this book from @BerithPress
It’s a well done and attractive volume.
I’m boutta Deum glorificare so hard as my family and I memorize the WSC in Latin.
Louisiana pastor beats up a man who allegedly threatened to r*pe and kill his wife and grandchildren.
Pastor Tony Spell of Life Tabernacle Church says he was working on a church bus when the neighbor's son started shouting at him.
Spell said that it is his job as the natural protector to protect his church and family.
"He said, 'Tony, I'm gonna r*pe your wife, I'm gonna r*pe all of your grandchildren,' and he said, 'The next time you go out of town, I'm gonna kill them, and what the F are you going to do about it?" Spell said.
The neighbors, the Sherwin family, claim Spell is not telling the truth, but during a press conference, Spell was backed by members of his church who say they've made multiple complaints about the Sherwin family to police.
Spell's attorney says the Sherwin family has "a large, industrial-scale camera that could see from across the street all the way into the pulpit."
Spell was hit with multiple misdemeanor summonses in 2020 during the COVID lockdowns when he refused to close his church.
"The Central City police are friends with these folks across the street. When Pastor Spell was being surveilled 24/7, it was with the help of the man across the street," Spell's lawyer said.
The pastor was reportedly arrested and booked for second-degree battery.
Gentlemen,
It is important to create a "Legacy Box" for your family. This should be a fireproof, locked, and hidden box that contains things like:
1. Your will
2. A list of all bank account/routing numbers
3. Login/PW for each account
4. Insurance policies
5. SOP's for any businesses you own/run
6. Letters to your family
7. All mortgage, utility, and property tax info
8. A list of trusted advisors for your family in your absence.
9. A list of all safe deposit boxes
10. Advice for what to do, and what not to do with the finances
11. An extra set of keys for houses, vehicles, boxes, storage units
Further, you should have people lined up to step in and bear the weight of your absence while your family gets on their feet. This is not possible without building a close and trusted community.
Don't set your family up for failure. Help them succeed. This will be a huge blessing in your absence.
Can someone explain to me why it’s wrong to read mustache man speeches?
If we published a book of essential speeches by Alexander the Great (blood thirsty mass murderer and tyrant) no one would bat an eye and we all know it.
I want to say I don’t get it but I do.
The post war consensus is unbelievably pervasive and powerful.
How many Christian conferences have vendors that published books they didn’t agree with?
All of them.
How many Christian publishers have printed books when they didn’t necessarily agree with everything written in them?
All of them.
The public denunciations are all performative nonsense to cater to left leaning pressure because that’s the only pressure people cave to in our day.
My take on it all? I don’t care and no amount of alto lisping concern is going to make me.
We don’t have to agree on everything and we can absolutely fight in house but the right is never going to make it until we’ve got the backbone to not attack our own guys cause we’re scared of being associated with anything not kosher.
I love guys on both sides of this but for me, mustache man speeches aren’t a fault line.
Publicly attacking brothers as the enemy to keep those to the left of us happy, is.
@calvingelical@the_jack_harper just published a topical reader on the reformed confessions that would be helpful to look at what each confession says about a certain doctrine or issue.