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Question: How to reach the youth culture?

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Steve: The student minister asked,

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how do we reach college students

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and these two extremes?

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And I'm sure the secret is

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there is no secret.

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It's the reality of the 
power of the Gospel

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and the reality and the power

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of the Person and work of Christ

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unleashed by His Spirit from the Scripture

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upon the lives of students.

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And the fact is,

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so many of these students are unconverted.

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And their parents are wanting them to come

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and they're not saved,

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so they don't have a new mind,

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they don't have a new heart.

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They have a heart of stone

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that's resistant to the things of God.

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Their eyes are blind. Their ears are deaf.

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So most churches just resort to

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a bowling alley or a concert or whatever

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just to entertain them.

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And that's a very challenging 
position to be in, Mackie,

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because you get a mom and a dad saved

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and they come to church,

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but all their kids are not necessarily

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yet regenerate.

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And how you hold their attention,

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I think you just have to,

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by the grace of God,

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every time you are with them

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and you minister to them,

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again, I don't think there's any secret.

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I think you just have 
to have such a reality

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of the living Christ in your own life

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and in your teaching and in your preaching

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and in your love and 
your outreach to them,

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and pray that God in His sovereignty

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will lay hold of them

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and arrest their attention.

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But I just refuse to turn this into

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a glorified club.

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And I totally understand

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a neo-Puritanical - 
I'm interested in that,

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but they're not interested in that.

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And I understand that. I wasn't either

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when I was that age.

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But I remember when I was in high school,

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I grew up in a liberal Methodist church.

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I never even heard a Bible message.

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My parents led me to Christ

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and I had enough there that I was saved,

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but I remember in high school

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going to certain ministries

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outside of my church,

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that when I saw and heard

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and felt the reality of what was going on

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in those circles,

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my heart was just drawn to that.

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I remember just meeting 
in living rooms like this

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and little parachurch ministry things.

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And it was so simple.

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Someone stood up and led us in singing,

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and there was a Bible message.

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And there were snacks 
afterwards in the kitchen.

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It was simple, but it was authentic.

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It was real.

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I think that somewhere in that

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is the reality of first 
century Christianity.

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And it may not succeed.

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And I'll have to accept that.

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I can't adjust the course for this ship

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if people are not hopping on board,

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but I don't have a martyr's complex.

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I'm not trying to shrink this.

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I'm wanting to enlarge this.

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I have a positive approach,

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but it's just who we are and what we are

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and it's like there is 
no other play to call.

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I mean, either God's going 
to get them on board,

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or they're just not going to be on board,

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but we're not going to 
become a different ship

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and cater to this.

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I would try to get the parents involved.

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And I'm coming right back to you -

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I'd try to get the parents involved

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and have their emotional support -

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not just be dropping them here,

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but to reinforce what we're doing

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as best we can.

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But really, what works in big church

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is what works in little church

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just with some adapting.

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But that's a tough question.

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Everybody I think around the country

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is wrestling with that.

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And yeah, there is this 
kind of new movement

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within reformed circles -

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the young, restless, and reformed

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and wanting to be salty 
and edgy and crass.

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I'm not going down that path.

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I think there is a standard of holiness

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and purity and integrity

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that we've got to maintain.

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And I'm not trying to be

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a shock jock with young people

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where I've got to shock them

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by my edginess to get them interested.

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The power is in the Gospel.

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It's in the message, not in the messenger.