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one of the other challenges with uh evangelism with this age is the fact that we're not the
only one sharing a message right we're the quietest voice in a lot of ways with students
being broadly catechized broadly inundated with um with social media with cultural you
know pathways that they're just bombarded from from every single direction chiefly from
their phone and and the quest so the question is you get a maybe an hour a week you get
a maybe uh in a conversation too how does the church how do leaders counteract or interact
with that counter catechesis yeah i think this is really important and you know i've
heard um i've heard both allen jacobs and tim keller both talk about this uh in the
past six months and yet we need to understand that uh you know there is uh there there is
a very deliberate effort to indoctrinate our kids you know into a worldview other than
christianity um and you know chiefly that that intentional effort is driven by the spiritual
forces of darkness and it plays itself out here in the earthly realm in different ways
but you know uh sandy wilson um he i heard him say one time in a seminary class he said
you need to preach as if you have enemies and i don't i think we use that language enemies
you know that can sometimes have connotations of hostility or aggression i'm not saying
that at all because you know we always want to operate with a calm and kind tomb and at
the same time um you it is important for us to deconstruct the arguments of the world
around us you know i i think uh with this conversation on gender uh i'm not afraid to
to you know talk to my kids about what what is it what is the narrative and what is the
philosophical basis of the argument for gender being something that's fluid and i'm just
going to say it is an intellectually empty argument it is uh it is intellectually inadequate
and it is nonsensical it's not rational and i think it's important for us to work through
okay you've heard you've heard that uh you know gender is actually something that is
fluid that's you know individually determined well what's the basis of that you know so
you've been called a school you've been you know you're being called a bigot at school
for saying that you believe in binary gender well let's break let's talk about what are
the arguments behind that and you know it christianity is rational i mean obviously
it's it's uh it's a supernatural thing and um and there's an element of faith but at
the same time christianity has a cohesive worldview to offer a person to understand
life and understand existence connected to that the other side i'm going to pull the
other side because it you know you mentioned the spiritual forces and uh i've been having
conversations recently about this um preach like you have enemies intellectual ones tearing
down arguments like paul says that set themselves up against the glory of god and we also know
that paul was a man who was down on his knees praying all the time preaching with authority
rebuking uh unclean spirits as did his master the son of god and we need to be aware that
the battle you know part of the battle yeah intellectual rational apologetics preach heart
and at the same time before you get up there and preach before you go sit there with a
kid and talk to him praying powerfully against the evil one his schemes his enemies who has
blinded the minds of unbelievers and and realizing that our battle is not against flesh and blood
but against principalities and powers and actually take the spiritual i mean this is
not where not where i thought i was going to go on this evangelist but but but actually
honest to god realize that there's we do have a roaring lion enemy coming against us and
against these these students hearts and their minds and it's wicked and they're trying to
tear them up in you know through ideologies through through anxieties through technologies
through all these things that uh maybe initially seem neutral but but are being used to malign
purposes and just realize also not out of fear but just in confidence that actually
one of the things that jesus did was behind the devil he conquered in the cross we have
that authority in christ the gospel does set free and liberate but we need to lean in to
that in and embracing that and and and and remember i think of the disciples and their
encounter with the demoniac when um that the demon-possessed child who was being thrown
and his father was asking the disciples to to to heal him to cast out that demon and
you know jesus comes down off the mountain and they're like we we can't we can't deal
with this it's too strong why couldn't we why couldn't we get rid of him he says this
this this one only comes out with prayer you know i think uh as we talk about this you
know counter catechesis here i think this is really something that's critically important
for parents yes you know because the reality is that kids swim in a world of messages i
mean the number of messages and advertisements that they are told and sold on any given day
is just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and so if you're a pastor or youth pastor
i mean there are certain things that you can do um but you have a very limited amount of
time around your kids and so a parent has to really train their kids you know when they're
watching tv to just ask questions you know to ask what are they saying here like what's
the implication of that politician's stance what is the implication of that advertisement
you know the the diet coke question the diet coke commercial where the girls walking around
she's being all cool and she's having fun like hey you do you right it's like hey let's
talk about that let's talk about a world where you do you everybody does what they see as
fit in their own eyes like what does that lead to johnny what does that lead to sally
you know yes it's a diet coke commercial and she's all cool and you know carefree and blah
blah but let's let's get below the world view that she's espousing and look at the chaos
and the damage that is actually inherent in a you do you worldview
coax advertising the book of judges right there um but really but that that element
of the counter catechesis we think we're thinking about youth pastors and all that but it's
really one of the main jobs i think of youth ministers is really just equipping the parents
right that to be the discerning loving gateways and and and disciplers of their children absolutely
and the last thing i will say is that you know for parents you can't just play defense
these days yeah you can't just you know think okay we're going to set up boundaries on the
internet and we're going to only watch certain things like yes you do want to play defense
that's really really important but you've got to play offense too you've got to train
your child how to engage these things you can't just hide because they're there there's
no way to escape it and so we need to equip kids to be able to deconstruct the ideas around
them and to filter them through god's truth in scripture [Music] [Applause]
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