faith – Page 15 – John Markum

7 Things I Believe about the Next Generation

Posted on May 25, 2011 by johnmarkum

The following is a re-post from the blog of Pastor Perry Noble, the founder and lead pastor of NewSpring Church of Anderson, SC. As a pastor who is concerned about young adults and emerging generations of Christ-followers, I found this post very encouraging. I hope you do as well. Blessings…

I lead a discipleship group of about 10-12 young men and women who are in high school…I’ve done so for the past two years. Here are seven things I believe about the next generation (people who are 20 and younger)…

#1 – The next generation will see one of the greatest awakenings the world has ever seen…I really do believe the Lord is setting them up for it. (Which is why I believe the greatest investment in “missions” that the church can make today is the one to have a dynamic youth and children’s ministry!)

#2 – The way the next generation will view and do church will be different than the way we do it today. They will fully know and comprehend how to reach out to themselves…and our role as a church should be to fund it and not fight it (that line is borrowed from Andy Stanley)!

#3 – The next generation seems to be way more serious about their walk with Jesus than my generation has ever been.

#4 – I believe those of us who are “more mature” (OLDER) should seek out those who are in their teens and listen to their questions and frustrations about life and church without coming down on them. If we will listen and patiently explain things there could be way less tension between generations in the church. Might does not make right. And…the “mature” people should always be the first to step into a relationship with the next generation!

#5 – I fully believe that the next generation has no earthly idea what God wants to do in them and through them…and if we will teach them to be fully surrendered on a daily basis that our children and grandchildren will see God do things we didn’t even think were possible.

#6 – I believe the next generation is not content with borrowing the faith of their parents, they are asking questions and seeking to understand WHAT they believe and WHY they believe it…and them doing that is going to equip them to take the church to the next level (I Peter 3:15).

#7 – I believe the next generation is going to refuse to settle for the way things are…and that as their view of WHO God is begins to increase so will their expectation in regards to what He can do.

Of Heaven and Hell

Posted on May 23, 2011 by johnmarkum

It seems as if there are times in everyone’s life that are marked with concentrated periods of stress, trouble, and tough times. It always seems to come in waves:

First you fight with your spouse over finances and the lack of time you’ve spent together.
You get to work and find out that your hours are getting cut in half.
Because you’ve been moved from full-time to part-time you realize you now lose your company-paid benefits as well.
On the way home the car starts overheating.
You check the mail on your way in to see the familiar stack of bills, that seem to be constantly rising.
You share all of this info with your spouse who starts to cry.
She then tells you all of the problems in her day: house, kids, depleted savings account, etc…
A family member called her because her mother (5 states away) is in critical care at the hospital.
To top it off, she suspects that she’s also pregnant.

Sound familiar? This story is not entirely hypothetical. More than likely, you have your own lyrics to the same song. There’s an entire message I could preach here about God’s grace through life’s difficulties, and His faithfulness to see us through. Or I could talk about the fact that God is not putting us through the fires of life to burn us, but to forge our faith and promote us to another level of His blessings. All of that would be true.

Instead I want to share a story and a simple thought that I got once from an amazing man, pastor, father, and mentor in my life from years back when I was in high school. His name is Norwood Tadlock. I went to school with all three of his kids. I knew him as my Bible teacher at my Christian high school. His wife passed away while I was still a teenager. Making similar observations as I have above, he once pointed out to me:

For those of us who know Christ, this is as close as we will ever get to Hell.

That’s a relief. The Bible even tells us that compared to Heaven, our present sufferings are but “a light affliction that is working for us a far greater weight in glory!” God is not minimizing our pain. He is simply encouraging us that one day, all of this will seem very small in comparison to Heaven. But “brother Tadlock” didn’t stop there. He quickly made the opposite observation:

For those who do not know Christ, this is as close as they will ever get to Heaven.

Frightening. And not what God wants for them, either. These thoughts coming on the back of a week full of natural disasters, false prophets, hurting people within my church, hurting people outside of church, and trying to pastor others through this messy thing called life, make me think 2 things:

1) Heaven must be unimaginably amazing. I want everyone to go there.

2) Hell must be unimaginably terrible. I don’t want anyone to go there – not even my worst enemy.

Let’s stop trying to guess at the day that Jesus is coming for us since He said that “no one knows the day, nor the hour of the coming of the Son of man,” and let’s get passionate about seeing people far from God awakened with life in Christ. We have a world to change. Let’s “endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” and make a difference.

Blessings,

John

Signs that you ARE getting it

Posted on May 16, 2011 by johnmarkum

At the end of last week I shared a list of signs that you might not be getting it when it comes to your walk with Christ. I encourage you to check that out here. But today I wanted to share some of the signs that you are getting it:

You are excited about bringing people you know to your church, and pray for them to receive Christ.
When you hear the Word on your own or in church, you ask yourself, “What does this mean for me?”
You feel guilty when, for one day, you miss out on your prayer time.
You can’t be satisfied with status quo.
You genuinely feel as though giving your tithe is an act of worship. (If you don’t have a relationship with Christ, we don’t want your money. Honest.)
You willingly forgive others who hurt you.
You humbly seek forgiveness when you hurt others.
Your moral standard is not based on a set of rules that you should keep, but in a relationship that you should honor.
You seek to obey God in your actions, regardless the cost of others’ approval.
You are whole-heartedly sold out to the work of God in your church.
You acknowledge that faith requires action.

Notice that none of this had to do with how much Scripture you could quote or how many services you attended this week. That’s because getting it, is a heart issue. And your actions will always follow your heart. When my heart is right with God, I want to hear from Him more in His Word, be in His house, and act like Him to the people I come in contact with.

Blessings,

John