Faith - Remove the Braces

Well, it's been a while since my last post. I apologize, wait, no I don't. I said a while back I don't want to turn out blog post like they are going out of style and write useless garbage. Anyways, here we go....

This past Wednesday night, I had the opportunity to speak the Gospel to the youth and college groups of Alberta Baptist in Tuscaloosa. While doing my introduction on who I am, I told the kids that around the age of twenty-five, God took the braces off my legs and told me it's time to stand on your own, and make your faith your own. You may be asking yourself, make your faith your own? Yes, make your faith your own.

See a lot of times we let the people who are around us, shape our faith. Whether it's parents, grandparents, brother, sisters, or friends, our faith is attached to them, not the Being that makes us whole. Now, I'm not sitting here writing this preaching to you, because this was me.

The reason this is fresh on my mind is this, the past months I have interviewed at several different churches regarding open youth minister positions. One thing that I've said at all the interviews is I hope while in the youth group, I hope the kids go through a process of making their faith, their own. Why am I stressing this?

Well, working with youth and being the son of a youth minister and music minister, I've seen kids come in, look like they are doing all the right things, taking their faith by the horns and really realizing a true relationship with Christ. Then, they roll off to college and they get consumed in society and their so called faith is left hanging in the closet. They may show all the outward motions of what a Christian looks like, but on the inside they are in dire torment. Then later in life, we have something happen to us, then we go crawling back to our faith. Yep, this was me too.

See, I don't care how many people really read this. But what I do care about is for those that do and may be struggling with this, take your faith by the horns. Stand on your own two legs and truly see God. If that means leaving a church you've been at since a kid, or worshiping with your parents, plugging into a small group with no one you know, or not going to the popular church on your campus, do what YOU need to do to fully realize what a relationship with Christ looks like. If you really don't know what to do, go to a minister you have a close relationship with. That's what they are there for...guidance and ministering.