Nick Sorenson's take on Living for Christ and Serving in the Church

If/Then Statements in the Faith??? Not always. It would seem to make sense that: - IF a person serves God wholeheartedly, THEN God will let life go smoothly. This is a common misconception. It's a human idea and it's NOT Biblical. This idea is just as much in error as the idea mentioned in my post "Is it God's Will for His Children to Live in Wealth". To defend this statement, let's start with a verse from Jesus   Matthew 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. It would seem reasonable to believe that, IF I am good and just, THEN God will make my life easy. God will put wind in my sails in all directions that I may travel. God will proper me in my job. My garden will grow perfectly. God will keep afflictions from my door post. Although this would be nice, this picture is nearly the opposite of what we read from Jesus in...

Does Youth Group Work? By work, I mean simply, do youth continue on with the church once they are no longer youth. We're so trained to think that if youth are going to remain in church we must have a thriving youth program.  I have a separate post on the family integrated church idea, so this is not going to be about that. This is specifically about youth group or youth aimed church. I can only answer this (for myself) based on my experience. I grew up in the height of the youth group movement, in the 80s and 90s. Youth groups were large, there were lots of events (camps, conferences with excellent speakers, youth trips to the Brownsville revival in Pensacola Florida, retreats, lock-ins, you name it). Youth groups were strongly endorsed by the church as a whole. The role of youth pastor was sort of the entry position into becoming a senior pastor.  So back to the question, did it work (in mine and my wife's experience)? Well, we're still in church... so yes, kind of. But i...