Youth And Ministry

This is Andy Thomas from the Masculine Journey Podcast where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. An extraordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into kingdom pursuits. Now live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore.

Well I'm Jerry Mathis, Raised Body Shop and Wreck of Service from the previous hour of Body Shop, Christian Body Shop Guy. Robbie is not with us this morning. I'm sitting in for him and I tell you what, I am excited about this morning. Got a few guests in the room with me and a lot of the important things we're going to be able to talk about. Got Dwayne Carson with Date the Word. Dwayne, good morning. Good morning to you, Jerry. And also got Connor. Connor, I'm drunk.

Strunk. Hold on, I got a room right here. And Andrew Dole with us from Pinedale Christian Church and they are student ministers at the church and this morning we're going to talk a little bit about, well not just a little bit. I really want to dive into a couple facts and realities. One is, there seems to be a difficulty of getting our kids in church and there's a number of kids leaving the church if we look at the stats. So we're going to dive into that and also for Dwayne this morning, he has an important date. See, 3-16 and as I sit there at 3-16 that should kind of roll something around in your brain there. Let me think, maybe I've seen John 3-16 somewhere. So this morning what would you like to share? Well, today is a day I circle every year, 3-16 because it makes me think of John 3-16. We've seen the signs at football games, we saw Tim Tebow, we put it under his eyes and people saw John 3-16 and today for me, 3-16 is John 3-16 day. And the challenge that I love to put before people is share God's greatest message to all humanity on this day, 3-16. The easiest thing you can do, I'm talking with your social media, how easy it is to get an image of John 3-16 posted and just tell your friends, family members, God loves you. John 3-16, I think I should quote it, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. This is the gospel in a nutshell Jerry, the gospel in a nutshell and the greatest message God ever gave the world is that he loved them so much that he gave his son for them that those, and that's all of us who are perishing, we don't have to perish, we can have everlasting life. That's the greatest news ever.

Absolutely. This morning also with Connor in here, I'm going to put the heat on you right off the bat, you're the first one up to bat here. Tell me a little bit about your story, what got you, you're in ministry, what got you there and tell me a little bit about your story of being introduced to Jesus Christ and accepting the call. Yeah, well I grew up going to church in Indiana at Indian Creek Christian Church and so I didn't really grow up outside of the faith. Both my parents love Jesus and they raised us all in the church and then my older brother got baptized and I was like, oh that was super cool, he just got dunked in the water, like I want to know what that's all about, I want to try that. And I talked to my parents about it and they were like, let's wait a little bit because it seems like you don't fully grasp what's going on here. And so the next year, like after a lot of study, it was kind of like, okay, like I'm ready for this, like I understand what Jesus did for me, I want to give my life to him. And so that was when I was probably around nine or so, something like that, and then after that I kind of was like, in my head it was like, alright, well everything's going to be super easy now, like it's going to be great, and I was super wrong about that. And I really struggled with kind of feeling like I was living two different lives of like, I'm a sinner, and then when I go to church, like I know all the answers, I know all the right things to say, I'm doing Bible wool, like it's happening, you know.

And that was really challenging, and I didn't really know what to do because I was a liar, I really was, and I had never, I guess, confronted the sin within me as much as I thought I had. And then, oh man, I was probably getting closer to high school, probably in eighth grade, I really started feeling like I wanted to go into ministry, of like, well I really don't know what I want to do, but I know, like student ministry specifically has been really influential in my life, because it was really student leaders and youth ministers and volunteers who served for me, and served me, that really kind of helped shape my mind and shaped my heart more to look like Jesus, because it was like, I was living this double life, and I was going to church, but I was really encountering people who actually were doing it, who were loving Jesus with their lives and everything they do, and giving their time and energy to the church to transform the lives of students. And it was like, oh wow, okay, these people are doing something that I want to be a part of for the rest of my life. And so that was probably when I was going into high school, or right before I went into high school.

And that was a big moment. I went to, like, CIY, Christ in Youth, I think it was my eighth grade year, like going into freshman year high school. And they would do this call for ministry, like, hey, if you want to go into full-time vocational ministry, like, just stand up. And I didn't even really think about that before that moment, but then for some reason I was just standing up, and I was like, oh, yeah, I guess I do want to go into full-time ministry. Like, I never put the thoughts together fully, but then I was standing, and I was like, okay, this is happening, you know. And then through high school, you know, kind of still just struggling, and kind of wrestling with really just surrendering, and like actually letting my life depend on Jesus, rather than, you know, just trying to muscle through it on my own, and be strong enough on my own.

Because that's really what I thought I could do, which was just prideful and foolish. Then kind of just slowly, throughout high school, just working on letting go, and letting go of my pride, and letting go of my own strength, and just living a life that more honestly and authentically depended on Jesus in every situation and every circumstance. And it really came to a point, like my senior year of high school, because it kind of felt like, hey, you know, anything and everything that could go wrong in a senior year of high school did go wrong. It was one thing after the other, like multiple friends, like making attempts on their lives, and like not making varsity after four years of high school. It's like, oh, man, like everything's going wrong.

And then it's like my grandma passed away, and then it's like my girlfriend breaks up with me, and then it's like this and this, next thing, next thing, next thing. And that was really a challenging season. And I really had to confront my pride in that season and say, like, I can't do this.

I can't do this on my own. I can't be strong enough. I can't be wise enough.

I don't know how to handle all of these situations that people are bringing to me that are actually just being placed in my lap. And that was a big year, one of the most challenging years of my life, but one of the most spiritually growing years of just like, I have to have Jesus. I have to have Jesus, or I'm not going to make it.

I'm not going to make it at all. And that was a big moment. And then I kind of just was talking to some of my small group leaders and some guys who had gone to Bible college and gone to school to do ministry and just kind of get in their opinion, like, hey, where should I go? Like, I don't know where to go. And my older brother, the year before, had gone to Johnson. And so I was like, oh, do I go to Johnson? Do I go to Ozark? Like, because of my small group leaders, they went to Ozark.

So I went out to Qatar, Ozark, with my sister, actually. And we both were kind of like, OK, like, this is it. This is the place.

And it was so random. It was like I'm driving eight hours away to Joplin, Missouri, because I was from Indianapolis. And it's like, it's like I'm in the middle of nowhere right now is what it feels like. But I'm I'm praying to God, like, God, if this is where you want me to go, like, I'm going to go there.

And as we're driving away, it's kind of like, yeah, this is this where you're going. So go back in a moment. We're going to touch base with Andrew and and also Duane. We're going to go back a few years with Duane on it.

And I know that's a rich history there. Again, this is Kingdom Pursues. It is a call in show.

And also, I'm going to throw out the question. What does John three sixteen mean to you? How about giving us a call and let us know what it means to you?

The number again is eight. You're listening to the Truth Network and Truth Network dot com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursues. I'm Jerry Mathis from Raised Body Shop and Record Service. We were just going down the front of me and asking sort of what got them to this point in their life and stuff. And we just heard from Connor. And I'm going to ask Andrew the same question. And also, before I do that, just just be thinking about one thing.

What does John three sixteen mean to you? And give us a call. And again, take the opportunity to share that today. You have a platform to share it. It may be on Facebook or whatever.

It may be just going across the street and telling your neighbor about it. I mean, you don't have to have that platform of media used to use the old thing God gave us our voice. Yes. And I think we lose sight of that also this morning. You're thinking about how if you have youth and kids. We're going to kind of hit on what keeps them out of church and what we need to do is as a church in general to bring kids back in. But I'm gonna go back to Andrew now. And Andrew, what got you to this point in your life?

Yeah. So I've got a pretty similar testimony to Connors. It's hard to really remember or envision a time where church wasn't a part of my life. I grew up in a much smaller church, though, than he did. In fact, I'm from that area that he calls the middle of nowhere, Joplin, Missouri.

Right. Live right outside of Joplin. So I went to a small Southern Baptist church and I was, you know, it's really small. But, you know, everyone was super connected and all of that kind of stuff. And I gave my life to Christ at seven years old at a VBS. And soon after that, I followed in Believers Baptism.

I think eight years old. And and yeah, just church was always a part of my life, a part of my testimony. I mean, you know, it was a part of everything that the church had to offer.

You know, today we're talking about things that kept kids, you know, keeps them from coming to church. It was hard for me to not be at church. I was always at church anytime the doors were open. And so, yeah, church has always been a big part of my life. I felt that called a ministry to at a young age. I was 14 years old when I felt like God was calling me in a full time ministry, which came with a lot of probably negative emotions. You know, when you're 14 years old, the last thing you want to be told or anything like that is what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life.

You're a kid and, you know, you want to enjoy yourself and you want to have fun. And, you know, you want to dream and you want to think about what it is you might do. But God made it pretty clear for me that ministry was was a part of what he wanted for me. And just over time, as I grew going through high school, I tried to pair my passion with my calling.

And so I was, you know, kind of trying to figure out what that looked like. And just like Connor kind of said, my experience with student ministry was a big reason why I wanted to do what I did. Now, my student ministry was probably a rare or my experience with student ministry is probably one that's quite rare. It was four of us. That was our whole youth group. There were only four of us. We were all the same age. And and so my youth minister and the four of us, we would just sit in a circle and we would talk about the Bible. Like we never really had like, you know, games or, you know, like events or we didn't really do much outreach to bring more people in.

It was kind of just our small little group. But what was really cool about that was I felt like even at a young age, I was being challenged with scripture and being brought deep into that. And so, like, I kind of just fell in love with God's word and just grew really, really deep into that. And as I got, you know, up in the upper years of high school, needed to find a place to go, find a place that that I could continue to grow with and pursue that calling of ministry. And so I ended up going to the same college that that Connor did probably for different reasons. Ozark Christian College was 10 minutes away from where I grew up.

It was really close. The biggest thing, though, was that like I grew up Southern Baptist my whole life and now I'm attending a nondenominational university. And so I had to kind of encounter a lot of things as I was there about wrestling with God's word and and hearing other points of view. And it just allowed me to grow in some really, really amazing ways to just continue to experience how complex scripture is, but also that complexity being so beautiful. And so, yeah, played played soccer there. That was also a big reason was got to play soccer all four years other than that weird covid year that popped up. And yeah, I just I loved my time there and just over and over again, the idea of student ministry was just at the front. I really couldn't imagine myself doing anything else right now with my life and just pouring into these students, loving on them and giving them Jesus. And so that led me out here to Winston-Salem, which was not expected either.

But God always works in crazy ways and had a weird little connection. And it was the week that I opened my heart up to God saying like, God, wherever, wherever it is, you want me to go? Like, I'm ready.

I'm willing to listen. I had a job in Missouri and I loved it and it was fantastic. But just slowly I was starting to realize that it wasn't going to be a long term thing for me. And that was that same week was when Pinedale Christian Church came came about. And and so I went home. I told my wife, I said, hey, there's a church in North Carolina that has our has my name.

And she said, we're not moving to North Carolina. But slowly we began to pray about it and we just realized they had God all over it. And so we've been here a little over a year. And man, we just love it. And we're so grateful for how God's moved and just being out here in Winston-Salem.

We're certainly Pinedale, certainly blessed by both of y'all and appreciate that. Dwayne, a little bit of history on what got Dwayne to where he is to date the word. And there's a there was a lot of a lot of stops along the way. And God kept moving you.

And the big thing is for all of these, listen to God's call. Yeah, I grew up. There was no middle for the nowhere. I grew up so back where we got yesterday's sunshine. I grew up outside of Lynchburg, Virginia. And to get to my home, I tell people, they say, where are you from? I said, Stapleton, Virginia.

They go, I never heard of it. I said, Goss Mill. Never heard of it. I said, Madison Heights. Never heard of it.

Lynchburg, Virginia. OK, Jerry Falwell. Well, yeah, that's how I grew up.

And I did go to a church, but I was religious, never reborn, became rebellious. And you and I have a connection with Liberty University. And the first time I met Jerry Falwell, I had I had an eight pack of beer in my hand.

And here's this man who has founded the more majority and Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty Baptist College at that time. And I see him and I got long hair chained around my neck and eight pack of beer in my hand. I'm going to die. And he walked up to me and shook my hand and said, how you doing tonight, young man? Scared the daylights out of me.

Big old hands. And I'm fine. And then I went on out and kept living the way I was living. But a 12 year old girl would invite me to church at 20 years of age. A 12 year old girl had boldness to one night invite me to come to church. And I didn't want to go. I said, I don't think God really cares about me. And I didn't know the church doesn't care about me.

And she said, Dwayne, all I can tell you is I love you and God loves you. And then God convicted me on a Sunday afternoon. A 12 year old girl invited you to church. Now get up and go to church. And that started me on a spiritual journey of to get born again. Next thing I know, God's called me to preach. Next thing I know, I have to be at a crystal Bible college for two years. God said, go to Liberty.

And boy, did I fight that. And then I get there and the next thing I know, I will meet my wife there. The next thing I know, I'm the campus pastor there, getting to work with the student leadership primarily. And just an incredible adventure with God.

That's been my life. And now we do date the word because for me growing up, not knowing about being born again, just being religious. When I did get saved, a man told me to memorize Psalms one. He said, you've got to meditate on God's word day and night. And it changed my entire life because how shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heat according to your word?

Your word of I had in my heart that I may not sin against you. So we've got a ministry called Date the Word to help people get back to memorizing scripture. And if I want to get more information on Date the Word, how do I do that?

Easy. Go to the website, www.datetheword.com. We have an app that you go to your app store, download it and you'll see the verse for the date. Today being three sixteen, you get a devotional on John three sixteen. We have every verse for every date that you can go to. Any date you want a verse, you can get one. We have a march to remember right now as we head to Easter. It's March thirty first. So you could be a part of a reading plan that's reading different scriptures, getting you ready to celebrate the biggest event in the Christian world, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But they go to that app. It's on Date the Word. Yeah, I love when you say the biggest event, because also and always add to that is the event that changed everything. Changed everything. We as Christians changed everything. Well, it's kind of flipped back because the connection with Connor and Andrew being in student ministry.

Yes. Also, Duane having that past and being deep rooted in it and also still reaching into that through Date the Word. One thing I want to make one statement, because I think when I looked at stats and stuff to lead up to this show, one thing I noticed was one of the stats everybody survey. If you want to have kids to stay connected, the parents need to play a role in that.

The numbers are drastically different from the ones. I'm not saying that a young adult or child coming to church without the parents is not going to get plugged in and not grow and get a relationship with Jesus Christ. But as a parent, we should make it easier on them. And if a parent is involved in church, it makes it a whole lot easier and it gives that too many times. It's sort of like it is with the school systems. We as a parent or there's parents out there that think, you know what, that's the job of the church. That's the job of the school. You know what, as a parent, that's our job and they're just to supplement it.

That's right. Deuteronomy 6. Absolutely. So this morning, I'm going to read something that I'm not going to go in and dive into that much on it. Well, when we come back, I'm going to do it. Eight reasons why kids don't go to church. And that's going to be good to listen to.

So I want to hear the feedback on that. And again, if you have a special, what John 3.16 means to you, give us a call. If you have a question with student ministry.

I am in this room, I have got plenty of knowledge and stuff who had been down this road. Give us a call. 866-348-7884. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com.

Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits. Again, it's calling show 866-348-7884. I left with eight. The question was eight reasons our kids don't want to go to church.

And I'm going to read down them and I'm going to pause a moment. And if either one of you have a comment, because I would like to hear the comments, because it's kind of, some of it is kind of, makes you kind of chuckle, but it's real reasons. One is they think it's boring. The youth ministers definitely chuckled on that one. They would rather, and I put fill in the blank, because there's always something they would.

Yeah, that's a hard one. I mean, now more than ever, there are so many things that are vying for students' attention. I mean, there's constantly sports, always. There's clubs, there's, you know, just so many things that the kids can do, which are good things. But, you know, oftentimes these good things can take up a majority of their students' times.

Yeah, there's just so many things that are vying for kids' attention now that, you know, the fear of missing out and all these things that will put kind of church on the back burner for a lot of kids. Yeah, I know growing up and playing sports, one thing I never had to worry about, there was no sports activities on Sundays or Wednesday nights. And that's an amazing statement right there, because now we don't even think about not having sports on Wednesday nights. But yes, Sundays, that was, you didn't have to worry about it. But when my son starts playing baseball, travel baseball, all of a sudden we're being hit with, there's games on Sunday at 10 a.m. Are you kidding me?

What do we do now? And it's hard for the kids, too. I mean, to even have, like, force them to make that choice is hard. Because even, you know, more recently, like, I never really struggled with that either in Missouri. I mean, every now and then I'd have a weekend tournament. But for the most part, like, Wednesday nights, I never had a game. We used to have to worry about people working on Sundays. My grandmother had to work on Sundays because she worked at a place, a food service, for a place that had to have their food. So she has to work on Sunday, but she went to church and then went to that place. Now, the reason I can't be at church is because I've got to go play somewhere.

Not work, play. Yeah, it's just a whole different world, and that's something we need to be aware of. The church needs to be aware of that.

Number three would be they don't have friends at church. I mean, yeah, I'd say community is a big aspect of it. Like, having your people there with you is a huge deal. And I think that one of the biggest things about kids not being in church in general kind of stems from not even just, like, having their own community, but what the community is like in general.

Like, is this a place where people are going to be warm, where people are going to be welcoming? Yeah, and I think even just the social media culture that has been becoming more and more apparent in these kids' lives. Most of the kids in our youth group now can't remember a time when social media wasn't a thing. And so there's so much of face-to-face interaction that's beginning to become missing in this next generation. And, you know, I'm speaking for Connor and I, but the way that our ministry function is driven on this idea of authentic, real relationships with people. And that means every kid that walks in the door, we want them to feel like they belong, and we want to be real with them.

We want that to start with us. We want to be present for them. We want to, like, help them know, like, this is what an authentic relationship looks like, and that's just missing. And kids oftentimes are not pursuing authentic relationships with new students.

Maybe they get the one or two that they're comfortable with, but they don't really allow that to expand. And so oftentimes when a kid comes into church, they don't feel welcome, they don't feel like they belong because there's something missing. But that's what these kids need right now, is just that authentic relationship and community. And I think that that issue that you raise up, one of the reasons why kids don't come to church, is that reveals the need. Like, these kids actually want that. They actually need that, and they've recognized that, and they just feel like they don't know where to find it.

And that's a huge place where the church has to step up right now, is how do we create real, authentic relationships for not just students, but people in general. Absolutely. And then the next one kind of leads into what you were just saying, is they don't like the other kids there. Some of our kids are punks.

Oh, man. But we love them. Yes, we do. Very much. Yeah, that can definitely have its challenges of just students' drama with other students. It can definitely have challenges. But, I mean, something that is always really encouraging is when just the power of Jesus overcomes those sorts of obstacles. Absolutely.

I think we've seen that quite a bit, of just situations that you probably don't know how that's ever going to end well. Just, yeah, it's fine. We're good now. It's all good.

Everything's good. And that's because of Jesus. That goes back, iron sharpens iron.

So you can have some friction. Jesus grew in wisdom. He grew in stature. So we're taking care of the intellectual, taking care of the physical. But it also says he grew spiritually. That's got to be a priority for that. But as I worked at the Christian school, he grew in relationship.

And so where there is conflict taking place comes the opportunities to teach how do you resolve the conflict. But when you don't have that, one of my worst moments at Liberty was having three roommates. Not two, not one, three. And as as I grew up, I'm the only boy with three sisters.

I always have my own room. Yeah. All of a sudden I'm at Liberty.

Three roommates. And my RA said to me one day as we were working through a conflict, he said, you know, this is going to really help you to be a great husband one day because you're learning people skills. How to how to understand, not compromise, understand with other persons coming from. Yes. Compromise is a little bit of it, but more than that to understand. And when young people are in church, I said at the Christian school, they're having conflict, but that's as good.

We get to teach them how Jesus would resolve it, how I look out for the other person's need, not just look out for myself. Yeah. I think of a night we had a C.I.Y.

camp this last year. Reconciliation was one of it was kind of one of the big nights. And it was actually really cool and really moving to see some of the kids that I knew the beef that all of them had. Like I knew the details to see them wrap each other up and to reconcile those relationships with one another through the the the lens of the reconciliation that Jesus has with us.

Like those are some really cool moments. And so, yeah, there are kids that feel like, oh, those kids don't like me or I don't get along with them. And and that's a great opportunity to show them how, hey, we don't get along with Jesus.

But he he's like John three sixteen. He sent his son to die for us to reconcile us back to him. And his disciples didn't get along. They did not.

That's right. He had to keep working on them on how to resolve issues. Number five, and I'm going to skip over this real quick because I want to get to number six, because I think it relates to what we were just talking about. They don't like their youth leaders or teachers. I can't imagine that playing to help. I mean, I get that a lot.

Number six. It's not relative. It doesn't relate to them.

It's not it's not relevant for their times. And I think that's part of what you're just talking about is those conflicts of things sometimes in church. And I said I wasn't going to add any comment on it, but I am sure for is the fact that sometimes we can take with the adults, with our kids, with our young kids, our student ministry, middle aged kids, senior adults.

We try to take the world completely out of it. We all should love each other and not worry about it. We need to be able to discuss the problems and work through them.

That's going to grow relationships. Yeah, I think that's a huge mental understanding that we have to confront, for sure. Jesus is always relevant. Jesus is always going to relate to what you're going through.

And that's been a huge thing we've been talking about just in the past few weeks. And I don't think you have to twist scripture or take it out of context in order to make it relevant. Yeah, you don't have to water it down for Jesus to be relevant. He's always been relevant. He's always the truth. He's always the way.

He's always the life. Yeah, we're going to come back and get the last two of these. But also, we're going to also talk a little bit about the practical things. How we work through this and bring people and make kids feel comfortable in church.

And again, date the word. John 3 16 means something special to you, and I can't believe nobody has called in to share a story about this. I hope that it's just you're listening to the Truth Network and Truth Network dot com. Welcome back, Kingdom Pursuits, and we're going into our last segment, which is a short one. So I want to make sure I get these last couple of questions and touch it a little bit on the practical things we need to be doing as a church. And number seven is they don't believe in God or are doubting Christianity.

Yeah, that's OK. I mean, like for real, I think we want our kids to express doubt. I think what happens why so many students leave the faith when they get to college is they never had a safe place to doubt. If I were to have if I were to say to a kid, where would I want you to doubt?

It would be at church. I want you to be honest. I want you to tell me what you're struggling with. And and so actually, we welcome that. We want them to think about it logically. We want them to really dive into what do they actually think. And I would say on top of that, this this generation that is coming up, they a lot of them do have questions and don't necessarily believe. But they're also surprisingly open to having those kinds of conversations of like, well, yeah, this is why I don't believe. And this is why I think this. What do you think about that? Like there are seeking answers even in the midst of their unbelief. Yeah, for sure.

As I was growing up, the answer to many of the why questions was because because I said so. Yeah. But when we look at scripture and I take it back to scripture, Jesus had to deal with a doubter. Now, he said this was the greatest prophet ever. But John the Baptist, who said, behold, the Lamb of God. Now is in jail. Yeah. And says, hey, go ask Jesus a question for me.

Are you the one? And Jesus could have said right there, John, I'm done with you. I'm done with you.

No, he said, go back and tell John. And he gave him scripture of what he was doing that proved he was the Messiah. Prophecy. And so creating a culture that allows for day doubting is massive.

Yeah, for sure. And a lot of us grew up with and it was a military mindset, Jerry, because I said so. We can't do that anymore. Our young people, when they ask my daughter, ask a question one night. Dad, how do we know there's a God? You're the pastor's home. How could you?

No, no, no. She asked, how can I know for sure there's a God? And I had a teachable moment and we spent the next hour still going to a ball game. We went and talked about how I knew there was a God because she wanted to know.

And I gave her that safe place. And so what you guys are doing, creating that John the Baptist is crucial for our young people today. They should not be attacked for saying, I want to know. Absolutely.

Number eight, and this is probably the most important one, and I think this answers the other ones above it. They don't have a strong relationship with Jesus Christ. Yeah. And the question falls back onto church and is us as followers of Christ, ambassadors of the gospel.

How do we bring them to a closer relationship with Jesus Christ? And I'm going to throw something out real quick that one of the things that that that Pinedale does and that y'all do is I love Wednesday night programing for the youth because of. And I'll let you explain it because it's I'll explain it wrong or miss the main point of it.

But with the youth leaders in those groups and how that works, because Dwayne, you're going to love this when they explain this. Yeah. So I mean, a lot of our programing, I wouldn't even really call it programing, but it's just built on relationships. Yeah. As we kind of walk down that list, we see I don't feel like I belong or I don't feel like I have relationships with people.

And so a lot of it's built on authenticity. We think that's what these kids need. That's what these kids want.

And so, you know, we there there's all these reasons why they may not be coming. But one of the things that I love about Pinedale, one of the reasons that brought me in was that kids come first. And so what we do on Wednesday nights, we all gather together. We separate them by age and gender. And we have two adult leaders who partner with them from sixth to 12th grade. They stick with them the whole time in the whole time through all of that. They're developing relationships with them. They're having authentic conversations with them.

We're giving them places to doubt, to ask hard questions, to look at scripture and feel uneasy about it and to live in some of that discomfort. And so what we're trying to do is is build long term growth for them, set them up for success to where they have real authentic relationships with not just adult leaders, but also with their peers, to the people that are their age, the people that are going through the same things that they're going through. And through that, we hope that, number one, that will give them lifelong community, that as they graduate, they're all graduating together and moving on to the same stage of life together, that they'll have two authentic adults that love them genuinely, that will be with them once they graduate.

Connor and I are just extra. We're there for all of them, but they have those people. And so we do that so that way they have a safe place to grow. And even if they don't like if they are in that category where they don't necessarily believe in God, they're still getting a relationship with people that they can't find anywhere else. And that's showing them Jesus. Yeah. And we hope and we pray that through all of that, that they will come to know Jesus. You know anything to add to that, Connor?

I mean, I think you explained it great. I think it's just it's we really been blessed to walk into a ministry like this and to be a part of so many relationships. Real quickly, can you tell me where Pinedale is? I know this is natural, but Winston-Salem. Yeah, Winston-Salem. It's on Peter's Creek Parkway website. Pinedale.Church is where you'll be able to find us. And then we're on Instagram, Pinedale Student Ministries. You guys can reach out to us there. And yeah, absolutely. Dwayne.

Go to DateTheWord.com. Share John 3 16 today. Yep.

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