Church Hopping

Abraham moves again in Genesis 20, I would guess this is because his business was livestock and he probably moved for them to have food. Apparently Sarah, who is about 90 by now, was still attractive enough to catch the eye of the king. Maybe it worked differently then and the men in power just took whatever woman they wanted or maybe Sarah just kept her beauty. God appears again to a pagan and the overwhelming effect of that encounter leads to fear.

Abraham is always known as this great man of faith, because of his willingness to do as God commands without questioning. In this passage I realized that he does have great faith in God for his own life, but he seems to doubt God’s sovereignty in dealing with the rest of the world. He knows that Abimelech and his people do not fear God, yet he doesn’t trust God to prevent them from interfering with the Abrahamic covenant.

I still have trouble understanding the role of women in Abraham’s time. I cannot imagine a wife who would agree to the sort of thing that Sarah did. She had to have known the consequences of saying this (i.e. being taken by other men). Of course this is a different culture, but also a different society where law was not set up to prevent injustice.

You also may want to note a small piece of trivia here. Abraham married his half-sister…awkward.

If the two angels are the same as the men that met with Abraham, then one of them must have bailed out on the way. Maybe this was the man that the Lord had appeared as and He left the angels to do the rest of the work. These men catch the eye of Lot, just like they did Abraham, and Lot is apparently the only man in the entire place that want to “know” them. The town of Sodom does these angels the favor of showing their sin. Since every single man in the town (except Lot’s sons-in-law perhaps) shows up, this eliminates the chance of finding ten righteous. We then find out in Genesis 19 that angels have some power here on earth and are probably very little like the nude Precious Moments angels.

As for Lot, it is pretty horrible to think that he would offer his daughters to the crowds, but maybe it shows faithfulness too. Thought if it were faithfulness, he probably wouldn’t have tried to appease the crowd, but stood up to them and trusted the Lord to deal with him and them accordingly. When the angels are trying to get Lot out of the city, I was a bit annoyed at Lot’s constant questioning and begging to do something else besides what they told him. Then I thought about how I would react if I were told to flee from my house immediately. I would definitely be as unprepared as Lot.

The last part of this chapter is slightly awkward. I don’t have maternal instincts (being not a woman), so I am not sure if starving them can lead you to do such crazy things. My guess is that these two people groups that come from this act were relevant to the people at the time, so it would be good for them to know where they came from. I do wonder what Lot said when he found out his daughters were mysteriously impregnated.

I looked into the Truth Ministry. Here is their mission:

Truth Ministry exist to help those that struggle with homosexuality to find freedom to live in sexual and relational wholeness according to God’s Design.

While they may not be great at subject-verb agreement, they have apparently found some sort of new cure for something else.

Source

I used to be in youth ministry. What follows is the way I think we should structure our approach to not only youth ministry, but all ministry. I think this can apply to most every ministry. Or maybe you have better ideas?

Youth ministry is essential because students are beginning to form beliefs, values, and habits that will impact the decisions they make for the rest of their lives. Youth ministry is a supplemental and supportive ministry to the ministry that parents do in their child’s lives. Youth ministry follows the model set forth by Christ. Christ spent a certain amount of time with different groups. He spent time teaching the masses (evangelism), teaching and fellowshipping with the disciples (discipleship), and investing even more in three disciples; Peter, James and John (leadership training). All students vary in their spiritual maturity and a youth leader must identify where students are and lead them accordingly toward becoming mature disciples of Christ. A youth ministry should always be active in three areas: evangelism, discipleship and leadership training.

Evangelism involves sharing the knowledge of Christ as Savior to students. In youth ministry, this is done through the adult leaders or through the students. Recently, more emphasis is being placed on students to reach their peers and share this knowledge or to bring them into contact with an adult leader who can. Security issues at schools have prohibited youth workers from going to the schools and the opinion of their peers is increasingly important.

Discipleship involves helping students discover the truths of Scripture and guiding them to become more conformed to the person of Jesus Christ. This is done through small group Bible study and one-on-one discipleship. The best method is through small group Bible study with peers of a similar age and same gender. Students have the ability to discover Scriptural truths and how it relates to their lives and their peers. Formal one-on-one discipleship should be prayerfully considered for certain students who are ready to be challenged further in their walk with Christ. An informal version of this happens as students build close relationships with youth leaders and seek to mimic them as they are mimicking Christ. Discipleship also allows students a chance to serve and to fellowship with the body of Christ, while evangelism is primarily concerned with those outside the church.

Leadership training involves identifying students who are at a point in their lives where they are willing and able to lead other students in and outside of youth ministry. These students must be challenged to adopt the qualities of leader’s in Scripture. As a result, when students graduate they will be equipped to become spiritually mature leaders in organizations, businesses and ministries around the world.

Depending on the dynamic of the church and community, more emphasis may be put on a certain area, but all areas should have some presence.

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