EP 51: Can I Ask Hard Questions in Church?

He's powerful enough and good enough to once again figure out

how to weave some of those things that even are broken,

some of the suffering that we experience for our own good.

And I think for a lot of us, we we've experienced that.

We've seen how, OK, this really difficult thing that happened in

my life that really was just an expression of evil in the world.

God has found a way to use that to help me look more like His

Son and experience Him in different ways.

Well, welcome back to the Grace Church Members Podcast.

My name is Scott. I'm your host today and I have

two first timers here in the studio.

So finally glad we got both Davis Craig and Bobby Rawlerson

here around the table. And we're talking student

ministry. We're talking some recent

content, particularly around asking hard questions.

And so welcome guys, thankful that you're here.

Introduce yourselves. And yeah, just tell us a little

bit about your connection to student ministry and even your

connection to to the Grace Church beyond that.

So, Davis, we'll start with you. Yeah, I, I work here.

I work at our Pelham campus, but I'm here today because I also

spent a good bit of time thinking about content that are

students here centrally. Yeah.

And work with a team of folks that work on all of that because

honestly, we we produce a handful of things kind of for

every series from Fusion all the way up through Forge.

So, so I get to spend a good bit of time thinking about and

working on all of that, which is kind of how we arrived our

questions. And you've been in the student

ministry space for a while now. Yeah, it'll be a decade in a

couple. Of months.

Wow. On staff.

Yeah. So that's crazy.

Yeah. So you're getting old.

Yeah, that you. So you've seen this process play

out a few different times. I mean, we're running three

different student ministries, lots of series throughout the

years and we'll jump into why this specific one.

But you've you bring a lot of thought, a lot of knowledge, a

lot of experience to this. Tell us a little bit about your

family real fast. My wife Madison and I've been

married for eight years ish, have three kids, 5, 3 and almost

2. So we're in it right now, and we

care about student ministry being good about a decade for

now. Well, that's kind of what I was

establishing. Like you've got, you've got pre

student ministry kids at home. I mean, you're, you're, you've

been around it, but you're seeing where it's going.

Bobby, what about you? Tell us a little bit about your

background, your relationship to the church.

Sure. Yeah.

I started at Grace 2018 in January.

That was when I my family and I moved up here and I'm married.

My wife Maggie and I have 5 kids.

Johnny is 14, Ellie is just turned 11, Annie is 7.

And we have who else? My goodness.

It begins to be difficult to name all of the children and all

the ages. Ollie is 4.

And then we have an 18 month old named Sammy.

So yeah, I'll be like, I don't know, like 60 when he, you know,

is, is leaving the house. So we have a lot of kids in our

house. We also do care that student

ministry is good. And I serve at our Harrison

Bridge campus. Discipleship in groups is I'm

one of the pastors there. But recently I've also started

to take on some content responsibilities centrally.

And so I've been working with Daniel Moore and a team to, to

help put together some things like the Essentials Acts series

that we're we're kind of launching at some of our

campuses. And then I've been working with

Davis to talk about student ministry in a lot of different

ways. And so this is one of the cool

things that I was able to do was to actually teach one of these

messages for our students on hard questions.

And so we've just been dialoguing about that for a

while now, so. Yeah.

No, that's great, Bobby. That's really great.

And again, we're glad to have you, have you in the studio.

We're going to have you back because you've got you've got

some knowledge on a number of different areas that we want to

talk about. But you both mentioned student

ministry being good. What makes a good student

ministry? That's a good question having

honestly, this series in and of itself kind of sums up what I

want a student ministry to be, which is not afraid to talk

about real things, to address hard questions.

Because in preparation for speaking to students about hard

questions, I, I came across a study that basically said there

are roughly, you know, I'm not sure what roughly 7 out of 10

students after they get out of high school would claim that

they had really difficult questions that they never asked

while in high school. Interesting.

And about, I would say only one or two of those would actually

say something. So really at the end of the day,

if you kind of do the math, you got half the students that are

in student ministry have hard, difficult questions that they're

asking, but they're not actually verbalizing that because they

don't feel like they're in a place where they have either

leaders or people that care or have answers or want to address

those things. And so I think having a student

ministry where vulnerability is on the table, where you have

leaders that care and you are able to address real things that

the students are processing through and thinking about,

that's really for me, what makes a good solid student ministry.

Obviously with a a focus on the gospel and making sure we're

pointing people to Jesus, but we certainly want to address the

real life issues that students are facing.

Yeah, we won't meet them where they're at.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Davis, what would you add to that?

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, we,

we're not confused about the fact that we have less than 2%

of the students waking hours generally that we're with them

for a week. And so for us, I mean, we're

just, we're trying to maximize that 2% towards a lot of the

things that Bobby's talking about.

But you know, parents have to ideally be the primary disciple

maker of their, of their student.

And so for us, we're trying to create community, local church

training ground. And that looks different for a

5th and 6th grader, looks different for a 7th and 8th

grader. It looks different for a 9th

through 12th grader. We're trying to say, OK, this

this 5th grader, right? They're, they're concrete

thinkers. They're on the verge of some

abstract thought like they're developmentally changing.

And that process is going to continue really for till they're

like 30. But for the time that we have,

then we're trying to say, OK, how do we train towards what the

local church is, what a person that's a part of a local church

does that's a follower of Jesus? What, what does their life look

like and how do we start giving concrete examples of that that

then start to stretch into more abstract things?

Because Christianity is it's, it's a lot of abstract thought.

So we're trying to be on the front end of that with our

fusion students. We're trying to work through the

dark middle school years of 24/7.

And then by the time we get to Forge, we really are have an eye

towards the future of, OK, this person is going to launch into

the real world, whether that's college, workforce, military,

something else, right? How is that person going to

leave Forge? Having good biblical thoughts

about what is the local church, what's biblical community?

How do I interact with the Bible?

What is the gospel? And none of that is foreign to

them. So they're like, yeah, I'm

moving to this new town to go to school and first thing on the

list is I got to find a local church that's healthy enough for

me to be a part of, start giving my life away at, and be taught

the truth and, and all of those things.

So we really are kind of progressively working from a

fusion student all the way up through a forge student towards

towards that end, yeah. So we're building, we're

building, we're meeting students where they are.

We're trying to understand the developmental phase both

physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

OK, so then let's talk about the role of both leaders and

parents. We'll we'll, we'll end with

parents as we get into particular topic here of hard

questions. What makes What makes a good

student ministry leader? A good student ministry leader

is a mature Christian, you know, And so I mean a big part of what

all of us need is we need people that are beyond us spiritually

that can help challenge us, encourage us, care for us in

certain moments that are difficult.

And so a good leader is, is that they're they're a follower of

Jesus who is taking seriously the responsibility that, you

know, an organized expression of the Kingdom of God, which we

call the local church has spiritual mothers and fathers,

spiritual brothers and sisters and spiritual children.

And for our leaders like these are their spiritual children

where they are mentoring, they're challenging and

encouraging with the truth of Scripture.

They're just in space with students.

And so a good leader is obviously able to build a

relationship with a high school or middle schooler, which can be

difficult at times, and but a good leader is able to do that.

And then they're just another voice of truth.

Ideally, they're not the only voice of truth, right?

Their parents are a voice of truth as well, but they're a

voice of truth from God's Word and the life of a student.

And I mean, we've all been there.

How helpful it can be for for us to hear the same thing from

multiple different people because our natural tendency is

to disregard one person saying one difficult thing, but all of

a sudden two people are saying how I treat my sibling is

probably not representative of what Jesus would want.

And I'm like, huh, Are both people wrong?

Yeah, probably. No.

But I mean, it's just, it makes it a more, you know, it's just,

it's kind of how we work. Yeah, more humans, more volume

of truth in students lives. Yeah, that's that's a big goal.

Bobby, what do you think when you think about your, your, your

kids? We'll talk about, like I said,

parents in just a second. What?

What kind of leaders have really made an impact your students

lives? Sure.

I mean, I think that, you know, parents and leaders, as Davis

said, are both integral to a student's development,

spiritually speaking. I think that for leaders, it's

just the willingness to be available, the ability that

leaders have to just be there in the moment, ready and willing to

have conversations when those things come up.

We've all probably tried to pull something out of a teenager.

It can be pretty difficult. I think a lot of the time it's

just the be with factor where you're just alongside them,

you're doing things with them, you're worshipping with them,

you're having conversations, you're there when they don't

want to say something, but you're also there when you when

they don't want to say something.

And so I think it's creating a culture where it's not foreign

for students to come up to a leader and ask a difficult

question or just say, hey, I'm really struggling with this.

And the leader doesn't freak out, doesn't necessarily always

have a perfect answer, but is willing to engage in the

conversation so that the student knows that they are cared for,

they're loved, and that asking questions isn't something that

they need to refrain from doing. Right, which goes back to your

your previous data points as you mentioned.

Yeah, yeah. It seems to me if we really want

to have an effective student ministry, we probably should do

it between like 10:00 PM and 11:30 PM When when, when those

high schoolers really get ready to talk.

But that's not super practical, speaking as a dad who's raised,

raised three of them. While we have you here, Davis,

it's we don't want to date this episode too much, but it is

retreat season. Just tell us a little bit about

the goal of retreats and again, and then we have three different

ministries ranging over 7 years. But what do we hope to

accomplish through these retreats?

Yeah. You know, retreats have

historically just been an incredibly fruitful thing for a

bunch of our students for different reasons.

I mean, our fusion retreats, like we're just, we're

normalizing a little bit of the fact that being a part of God's

family is not boring. Like there's, there's a like a

more full version of life that even on this side of eternity

that Jesus is willing to give us, I think.

And, And so for our fusion students, like a lot of it is

that what we're trying to, you know, compel them with truths of

the gospel. And, and I know we're going to

get into some content thoughts in a second too, but I mean,

we're very intentional about what we're teaching on retreats,

especially to our middle schoolers, because there's not a

ton that has changed about a 12 year old over the last 20 years

there. There are some things, right,

especially with smartphones and different things, but

developmentally, their brain is still in the same place that it

was. And so, you know, every other

year, like at least once in fusion, you're going to get the

gospel over the course of a retreat.

And once the other year you're going to get an understanding

and explanation about why our key relationships matter and

like how those things play out. And so, and that's, I mean,

repetition is helpful. That's what we teach throughout

the year to a fusion students in both years that they're there.

So the content doesn't matter as we get away on retreats, but

there's something about interrupting the routine, the

flow of life, where that kind of disruption creates softer soil

that God can really work in. And I mean, that's especially

true for our high schoolers and, and middle schoolers is over the

last few years, we've started collecting funds on the bus on

the way up. And just that disruption, how

quickly our brains can except some, some new rhythm that's

probably a healthier rhythm on the back end of disconnecting

from a phone and just being in space with other people is it's

fascinating. I mean, the detox, the detox is

real for much of our students. And so on Friday night, like

everybody's kind of, you know, jittery because they haven't had

their phone for a couple hours. But then by Saturday night, you

know, we're 24 hours in. Everybody is free in a way that

I, and they would all admit. I mean, for the most part, they

would all admit that no, this is this is different in a good way.

And maybe I shouldn't have my phone all the time with right.

But I mean, even that, like just how often can you create that

kind of moment? Like it really does take, Hey,

we're going to go away for a weekend.

That's right. And and do this retreat where we

get a chance to, to do some different things and expect that

God can meet us in those moments and, and teach us new things.

And so like I said, it's it's proven to be year every year one

of the most fruitful things that that we do and.

Disrupting the normal routine and creating space like that in

of itself is a worthy goal. Then what we do in that space,

tons of freedom. But we try to incorporate lots

of elements of fun, lots of elements of community around.

There's the existing group, the larger group sometimes, well, we

have campuses that are all together, so we're seeing

friends from, you know, different schools and different

things like that. And then the content is very,

very strategic. Yeah.

Just real quickly as you move up through 24/7 and forge, what's

what's a forge goal look like as it's different than maybe a

fusion goal. On on retreats On retreats.

Specifically, yeah. You know, I think that we are

working with budding adults and Forge and so that's, that's

different than fusion and even sometimes 24/7 students that are

on the front end of, OK, what is it?

What does it mean to be a young man or young woman made in God's

image and all that. So with Forge, I mean, we are,

we are starting to treat them like we would want to treat in a

young adult. That's a part of the church

because in most cultures throughout history, those they

are adults, you know. And so we're we're really not

trying to pull any punches from a high school student with the

truth. We're trying to meet them where

they're at. I mean, a couple of years ago,

one thing I think about which we ended up hijacking it for our

whole church was self-made. That's that we spent a whole

weekend saying, OK, here is here is what your culture is telling

you to believe, which is that you're the most important thing.

You're the source of truth. And that's where you know

fulfillment comes from is you fully being you.

And the Bible just doesn't teach that.

And so, you know, we are, we are very much trying to tackle front

edge cultural realities that our students are facing and forge in

a way that actually in some ways directs are it can at least

direct our adult series. That's a good point because it's

a it's like a real live testing ground with ideas that kids are

engaging with and being honest about their engagement even

though they might not fully form their questions.

But, you know, just if you want to know what a kids thinking,

just, you know, ask him and he'll tell you.

Maybe ask him a few different times, two different ways.

But you learn from those students, and then you start to

apply that across different age group seasons of life.

Yeah, I've seen that. That's been really, really,

really kind of cool to watch. And so maybe even our content

here might have some expression in the future in our adults.

We don't know. Because I mean, generationally

we are constantly working with a new generation.

That's what C Ministry is doing is that, you know, we are

constantly working with the new generation that happens to be

the next generation of the church.

And so our ability to, you know, share an influence, share the

gospel influence with truth and, you know, compel them towards a

vision of, of the Bible, of why the Bible is even important is,

is a huge deal because that's, that's in some way what we're

going to give our next 1020 years to until they are giving

their next 1020 years to the next generation, you know.

Well, let's let's talk to parents specifically for just a

second. And what do we want?

Our parents. What do we want our parents to

know? What are we asking them to do in

relationship to engagement with their students and how that fits

with the overall goals of the student ministry at the churches

campuses? Yeah.

I think you said something earlier that is helpful, the

idea that we're building like we are builders.

And I think it's important to know that we really are builders

in student ministry, not necessarily fixers, which can be

difficult because as a lot of us know, and even some of us have

experienced like the middle and high school years can be a

moment that is far from God in our lives.

And for parents, I mean, and I remember my parents, I mean,

there's, there's a certain amount of control that they want

to have that really God is just saying, Oh, you're, you're

actually not in charge of that. And so there's just this reality

that's playing out where then, you know, as a parent, we want

to constrict more and. Say, well, no, I mean, if you

just in church more than all of this is going to work out.

And no, you have to be a part of this small group and you have to

go on this retreat. And sometimes God totally meets

students in that space and then rescues them, but other times he

doesn't. And I think the thing that can

be helpful to to remember is just that the church is

primarily at least student ministries, primarily built

around building and being able to say, OK, this is what

community looks like. This is what confession looks

like. This is what repentance looks

like, more so than being the source of salvation, because

really only God can do that. So I do think there's something

about that to just be able to note and remember, which is

that, you know, God is God is the one that saves.

I mean, that's part of the hard questions that even we tackled

with our students is, well, who's in tweed gets to choose?

Do we get to choose? Does God get to choose?

And I think it's important for us to remember God's ultimately

in charge. We're just all trying to

faithfully obey. And I think even for our

parents, just knowing that we we don't get to control the outcome

of salvation for our student. And that's tough because I mean,

I'm thinking about it with my three kids and out and I'm like,

OK, God, I really want to control where all this goes in

their lives, but I can't. All I can do is continue to try

to obey the things that you've asked me to do and pray that you

will do the same for them. And I have responsibility as a

parent and all of that. But that doesn't guarantee any

outcome. And I think student ministry is

the same way as there's no guaranteed outcomes in this,

right? We are, we are trying to obey

God as best as we can and put ourselves in position to be

given the truth. And so I do think there's,

there's something about that that feels important to note and

and notice. And I mean, I think back to the

2% thing is just that we have such a limited window of time

that we're able to influence. And so for parents to remember

that like, OK, like we're second string.

You know, we really, we, we can come in the game for a second

and maybe give a boost of energy and offense and that's great.

But we can't necessarily be in the trenches day in and day out

because you can. Yeah, which is a grind that's a

lot of hard work. And so I think that even as we

talk about leaders, I'm like parents, y'all, y'all are there

for a small group leaders, you know, first and foremost, y'all

are frustrating and being able to feel that responsibility and

not totally want to outsource that to to other people.

Other people are going to be a huge part of that, especially as

you're I mean for your kids entire life, that's going to be

a huge part. And that's why community is

important. But recognizing that OK,

there's, there's a limited contribution that can be made

outside of our home. So that means we the the

pressure is on for us. Yeah, that's a good word.

And parents, be encouraged. And just just day by day, make

sure that you're understanding and living out the gospel and

then just doing the best as you are communicating that kind of

truth. A lot of it is through asking

questions and a lot of it is is realizing where we are trying to

control. And I think some of that control

is why students don't feel like they can ask questions because

the parents aren't really giving them the freedom to ask those

kinds of questions because these kinds of questions, these are

difficult questions that don't necessarily lead to controlled

outcomes. Right?

So we've teased it out a good bit here.

Tell us exactly these 4 categories.

And this is fresh as we just finished this teaching.

Sure. With Forge, where?

Where did we go and why do we decide to go there?

Yeah, there were 4 main categories where we were asking

questions that we knew students were interested in hearing the

answers. Making decisions was a big one.

Brokenness of the world, right? The problem of evil, which has

been around for a long, long time, which is one of the

toughest questions that Christians have to have to deal

with an answer doubt and tension.

You know, what do we do when we have doubt and tension in our

relationship with God? How do those things work

themselves out and salvation and free will.

Like how do those two things that seem to be a contradiction

actually go together and, and what does that look like?

So those are the categories that we we had that we dealt with in

terms of the hard question series and really.

Just small, just small little questions.

Yeah, just so really simple, easy questions.

Making decisions, brokenness of the world, doubt, intention and

salvation and free will. And out of all the questions,

tell tell us a little bit about how we kind of came to those 4.

Sure. Well, Michaela Sanders, who

works at Harrison Bridge with me, she does student ministry

there. She also helps with content

centrally for all of our campuses.

And she really had this idea of tackling difficult questions

that students have. And so she put some work into

surveying a lot of our our high school students.

And these were the categories that kept coming up.

And so these were the four areas where students just made it

really clear we have big questions in these areas that we

would love for you to address in a in a teaching series.

Awesome. Shout out, Michaela for that.

And then what are we hoping to accomplish particularly around

destigmatizing these questions? Yeah, I think for a lot of the

students, they need to again, be in a setting where they feel

comfortable asking difficult questions, questions that they

might not feel comfortable asking.

They need to have a culture where that's actually just part

of how things operate. But I also think it's important

for our parents. We were talking about our

parents earlier and their role in discipling their their

students. And I think it's, it's

interesting because, you know, you get out of high school, you

get into college, you know, it's still kind of appropriate for

you to ask some of those big, hard, difficult questions.

But then as adults, you get to this place where you're like,

can I still ask that question? Because I'm, I'm not sure that I

actually have an answer. And I still have thoughts about

those things. And, but we feel kind of awkward

doing it because we're like, we've been a Christian for a

long time. And so the analogy that I, that

I've used is it's like, you know, going to, you know, to

church every week and you see the same person, yeah, but you

can't remember their name. There becomes a certain amount

of time that passes where it's like, OK, it's way too awkward

for me to ask that person their name.

And I feel like that's the same kind of situation our parents

get in where they feel like, I've been around the church for

so long, I should have already thought through the problem of

evil and not have to ask that question or what does God's will

look like and how do I make decisions?

Like I, I feel like I shouldn't be at a place where I have to

ask those questions. But what we've realized is that

in the same way that students have these questions, parents

have these questions as well. Yeah.

So no statue of limitations on asking questions what you're

saying? So no, no, that's good.

I love that analogy too, because that happens a lot.

So all right, well, we're not going to try to give a thesis on

each of these. But what we while we're here and

we're in this dialogue and this is fresh, just thought we could

take a few minutes and hit the bullet points on on each of

these topics. And this is just a fly over.

And if you're interested more, we encourage you to ask ask

questions. I'm assuming our content that we

taught is available. Where's that available, Davis?

It's available on our website. Yeah, so you can find our, you

can find this series on our website under Forge Teaching.

So Bobby, let's look at the first one on making decisions.

Give us some thoughts you have around that.

Sure. I think that it's a pretty

common question, particularly for high school students.

They're making a lot of decisions.

And so the question is really how can I tell whether I'm

following God's lead or my own desires when I'm making these

decisions? And I, I think there's a really

good book that I've read that's been helpful for a lot of

students called Just Do Something by Kevin Deyoung.

And that book was, was really monumental in terms of helping

students understand, OK, what does God's will look like?

Because it, it can become tricky.

Yeah. And I think the place to start

with this question is with just the nature of God's will.

I think God's will is not primarily about finding the

right path or discovering the the perfect career or the

perfect relationships or the location where I should live.

I think it's about becoming the kind of person who reflects

Christ in whatever situation you're in.

So in in Romans chapter 12 verses one through 2, those it's

Romans 12 · chapter mention

a, it's a well known passage about, you know, worshiping the

Lord. And it doesn't say discover

God's specific plan for your life.

It actually says be transformed by renewing your mind and then

you'll discern what God's will is.

And so I think that's the key is I remember when I was in high

school, actually a guy came in and he was well meaning, but he

drew a stick figure on the board.

Then he drew God the top right of the board, and he drew a

straight line from the stick figure to God.

Right? The stick figure was me.

Yeah. And then he was like, you're

going along. You're on God's will.

But what happens if, like you walk away from God and like

where the X was on the line was like my wife.

And so it, it terrified me because I'm like, if I step away

from the Lord for one second, I might miss my wife or, you know,

the decision on where I should go to college.

And so that got me thinking like, what does this actually

look like? And I think the illustration

that has always stuck with me is kind of like driving on a dark

Rd. Like your headlights only go so

far, right? And that's the same type of

thing. When I think about God's will,

it's like he's going to give you enough to see, you know, 100

yards down the road, but he's not going to light the entire

thing for you. And so it's more about trusting

him than it is about coming to a point where you have all of the

answers. Because we think we want the the

high beam highlight and everything.

What would happen if we actually saw all that?

Oh gosh, I mean it would be overwhelming.

No, we couldn't. We couldn't even comprehend it.

No. And there's part of the the

relationship that's being cultivated.

It's funny, you mentioned Romans.

I just we were teaching that in Nicaragua recently and this is a

big question that those pastors were asking.

And we had the same conversation about the will of God from

Romans 12 and just that idea that we want like rules or path

because we we long for clarity when really God has given us a

relationship. Yeah.

And I love that headlight analogy because it's really

saying, hey, just the relationship is there.

I'm going to give you the next step.

Let's cultivate that relationship and let's keep

moving. Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, I think not getting bogged down in like there's a, there is

one decision that I have to make.

I think God, and this might sound a little, a little

strange, but it's like, I don't think that God necessarily cares

that every single decision that you make is the exact one that

he has for you. There was a study a long time

ago that I read where it took a playground for kids and they had

a fence around it. They took the fence down and

they noticed that when they took the fence down, all of the kids

would stay really close to the playground equipment, right?

And when they put the fence up, then the kids would like venture

off and go play because they were bound.

And so I think that God's Word is very clear that there are

things that are part of his will and there are things that are

not. And so if your desires are going

against God's Word, then that that's the problem, right?

God is never going to lead you to cheat or lie or manipulate or

justify something that's clearly sinful.

But I do think there's room to move.

Like I think that there's that boundary of the fence around the

playground. And so you can make decisions

and and take certain risks and steps and be in God's will, but

it doesn't have to be that linear straight line that we

were talking about. Yeah, I'll try not to ask this

at with with each of these topics, but how, how was that

received by the students? Do you feel like that's

resonating? Yeah, I think so.

I mean, it's, it's that idea that's just there's there's

small things in front of you that you can do every day and

that God's got the big picture. Like there's some freedom in

that. And I think for, you know, some

of our students, this is AI mean there's a lifelong challenge for

a lot of us, right? Absolutely.

So for some of those there, it's just good for them.

They have a primer. So now the next time that

something happens where they're like, oh gosh, I'm frozen

because I don't know what to do. Hopefully God can the Spirit can

bring up something from this series and be like, OK, it's OK.

I don't have to panic the this decision and that decision,

neither one is simple. So there's probably some freedom

in the playground. Yeah, hopefully some freedom.

Yeah, that that would be the word that I would would hope

for. And because it's very different

than the the anxiety that a lot of our students feel and a lot

of their students feel that anxiety about pleasing God and

staying in God's will. And so that's a, that's a good

word. Anything else you want to add on

that, Bobby? I mean, there's a few different

things that I think would be helpful, but for the most part,

I think it's just about trusting him and and focusing on being

the person that he has created us to be.

Right? To continue to be discipled, to

continue to grow in your relationship with the Lord, to

continue to be the kind of person who reflects Christ no

matter what situation you find yourself in.

I think if we worried more about that and really were we were

taking God's word and kind of that was penetrating our heart

on a regular basis, then that's going to be the lamp to our

feet. Like that's going to guide our

path. That's, that's when the whole,

the whole path is not going to be lit up, but enough will be

lit up so that we are able to, to continue to follow where the

Lord's leading. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Go read Psalm 1 and there's some of a lot of us, There are

hundreds of folks right now who are duty doing, reading through

the Scripture. And that's where we start.

We start in Genesis one. We start in Psalm One.

The idea in Psalm 1 is that we delight in the law of the Lord.

We meditate on it, and then we're able to develop deep, deep

roots and be like a tree planted by the river.

And so, yeah, stay near to God and his will that that formula

becomes a lot easier. So sure.

Good, good word there, Davis. Broken, brokenness of the world.

Yeah, let's let's go ahead and admit Bobby is way more

qualified to speak on all of this than I don't know if I was

qualified to teach these, but I did so.

You do live. You live in the world, so you

have you're familiar with the brokenness.

Yeah, Davis, you can handle this is pretty, pretty simple.

Did you ever? Why does evil exist if God is

all powerful and all good? Right, Right.

So, so this was, I mean, this is a, this is a tough one because

it, it does not take many days breathing to recognize that this

world is not right. And you know, it just doesn't,

it doesn't take me just read the local news and you can find 6 or

7 stories a week where you're like, how did this person that

didn't deserve anything get this death or this sickness or this

what I mean, it just does not take long for us to recognize

that something seems complicated about this.

And so as we tackled this idea of why, why is the world broken?

God's good, all of that. I mean, there's a few things to

recognize. 1 is that God created the world good, and it's sin

that actually breaks the world. And who who brought sin into the

world? Humans did.

And so it's like we created this mess.

God didn't create this mess. He gave us freedom to make

decisions. He didn't make us robots where

we're just operating a code that means we love him and worship

him because then that wouldn't be real love or real worship,

like there wouldn't be any meaning in that.

So he gave us choice, but that choice created this possibility,

right, That we could choose evil.

And so I think there is this thing to see Genesis three, OK,

who, who, who kind of broke the world.

We we actually broke the world. And then what you see from that

moment on is that God actually has this commitment to remaking

it. He's not good for it to stay

broken forever. And while he didn't create it,

he can work to he's he does a couple of things that we see

throughout the scriptures. He can work to use things that

are not good for our good. Like he figured out a way to

say, OK, this isn't great, but I actually can use this for your

benefit even though the world is broken and you broke it.

So there's this actually incredibly powerful thing about

that. But then ultimately, like he

says in Genesis 3, that he kind of alludes to the fact that, no,

I'm, I'm really going to solve this.

Problem. I got a plan.

And and then we get all the way to the end of Revelation and

it's like, OK, no, the plan has come to fruition.

Like all things are new. Weeping, gnashing of teeth, all

that all that's gone. The brokenness is here no more.

And so there's, there's just a handful of things where you see,

OK, we, we were responsible for breaking this.

It's like my 5 year old, she, she did room time one time we

walk in there, she had found a marker at some point and we had

some new artwork on our walls. And the point is, is that like

she had freedom and within some boundaries to go do something,

but she chose to do something that was destructive and not

helpful. Well, then for me, like that was

a, that was a clean wall, right? It's a lot of work to find the

right paint. We got a magic as we ran out of

that paint, got to get the paintbrush out and got to, you

know, protect the floor. Like that's what God has been

doing ever since is that is a bunch of work to fix the the

broken wall, the jacked up wall. So, so that is what he's been

doing and he's powerful enough and good enough to once again

figure out how to weave some of those things that even are

broken, some of the suffering that we experience for and good.

And I think for a lot of us, we, we've experienced that.

We've seen how, OK, this really difficult thing that happened in

my life that really was just an expression of evil in the world.

God has found a way to use that to help me look more like his

son and experience him in different ways.

So. I love that you, you start with

the biblical story because I think that's the place to start

with this question. Because I think a lot of times

people believe that Christianity just kind of offers this type

philosophical formula, but it it doesn't what Christianity offers

is it offers a story. And so the world obviously

created good like you mentioned, but then evil entered not as

something that God created, but as as a distortion of good and

trying to like wrap my mind around that.

I think of, I think of like a parasitic type relationship or

even even like rust, Like rust doesn't exist without metal.

So really evil is a privation of good.

Like if there was no metal, there would be no rust, right?

And so because there's good, there can be evil, but God is

not the one that created the evil, but he's the one that's

going to then take it, allow it, but he doesn't endorse it, if

that, if that makes sense. So I do like the fact that we

started with the the biblical story rather than going straight

to kind of like philosophical conversation out of the gate.

Well, and even thinking about the character of God right after

that event in Genesis 3, you know, there's consequences for

sin and then there's a plan to deal with it.

Right, Romans. 5 And that's where we get just the the the

new Adam in Romans 5, in Christ in the first gospel in Genesis

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3, and just the story of Joseph.

Again, thinking through where a lot of a lot of our church is

right now, reading through the Scripture in Genesis, Joseph,

clear example of what was meant for evil, God turned for good.

And so we can see a lot of those examples throughout Scripture.

Yeah, those are big ideas, guys. It sounds like you did a really,

really good job. But all about anything else. 01

Other thing I think that's important to mention is that

obviously evil and suffering are real, and we see that, as Davis

alluded to, every day and the evil is devastating.

I think God doesn't minimize that, but he's not powerless and

he's not indifferent. I think the the word we're

looking for is he's patient. So why does he allow this to

continue? In Second Peter 319, that

passage reminds us that God delays judgment because he

desires repentance. Like he could end all of the

suffering, the evil in the world, but that would require

judgment. And he's patient and desires all

people to repent. And so there is a, a piece to

this word. Like, I don't know how long that

that patience is going to, to last.

That's not our call. That's not information that we

get. But I do think that when the

question is why does God allow this?

He, he allows it in in a sense, because he's patient and he

wants people to repent. Yeah, from the evil that they've

turned to. And I think finding that,

finding that balance in that tension, because a lot of our

high schoolers, they're going through difficult things.

Yeah. They're going through the

effects of the brokenness of the world.

They're going through disappointment, you know,

disease, sickness, death. I mean, they're, they're

they're, they're living life as these emerging adults.

Like we were talking about specifically, I'm thinking about

our sixteen 1718 year olds. And I'm also I'm just have this

picture you know, of we talked about getting desensitized to

things, but are are kids that are going to public high school

like they're walking through metal detectors every day when

they go into high school. And they're they're just that

they're living with the reality of the brokenness of the world

all all around them. And for our leaders to be really

empathetic with these questions. Sure.

Because of the effects of sin in the lives of everyday students

and not try to come up with trite answers that that don't

that don't really solve the problem.

Yeah. And I think going back to what

you just said, like go to the scriptures to both define the

problem, talk about the solution, and part of that

solution is found in this ongoing relationship and

intention with God being sovereign and whatever his

eternal plan is. Yeah.

And and then having the comfort of of not having to do it alone.

I think that's that's a big part.

So it's our third topic is about doubt intention.

And and sure, the brokenness of the world contributes to to some

of that doubt intention. It's not the only thing that

does. But Bobby, how did you, how did

you kind of handle that? Yeah, this was the message that

I that I taught for our forge students was on doubt and

tension. And I looked specifically at Job

Job 42:7

chapter 42, verse 7 and I I really kind of unpacked job the

entire book quickly succinctly for the students.

But I I remember starting just with a story of of my own one

from when I was in high school. I had a, a good friend named

Elaine who, who passed away unexpectedly.

She was driving to work, a guy coming the other direction had a

heart attack, swerved in her lane and and she passed away on

the scene. And so that to me was the

definition of pointless. Like she's 16 years old.

She has her entire life ahead of her.

If that if that man's heart attack would have happened 30

seconds before, 30 seconds after, she still would be here.

And so that began the process of, of me kind of just shoving

difficult questions and doubt and tension down because I

didn't really feel like I had a place to talk about it.

And I used the illustration of a beach ball.

Like, it's possible for you to get into the swimming pool and

hold a beach ball underwater. Like, it's not difficult.

But over time, like you, you move your hands at all and that

thing is going to going to explode to the surface.

Yeah, it's going to, it's going to come to the surface.

And for me, that happened when I was in seminary.

I had the kind of a crisis of faith because of all of this

doubt and tension that I had been shoving down trying to

manage these, you know, these beach balls, so to speak, under

the water. And I just couldn't do it

anymore. And they just all came to the

surface and I began to understand, like, obviously just

silence isn't the answer. Not talking about doubt,

intentions is certainly not the answer.

That's the beach ball approach. That's never going to work.

But for our students, what I wanted them to see is #1A story

in Scripture that we have with the person of Job who did

nothing wrong, right, did not do anything to deserve what, what

he walked through. That was actually the result of

Satan going before the Lord, saying, you know, God saying,

have you considered my servant Job?

He, the only reason he follows you is because you're, you know,

you give him everything he wants, right?

Like that's easy. And so everything was stripped

from him. And what was fascinating to me

is, as I read through the whole book of Job, just in preparation

for that talk, is that you get to the end and of course you

hear Joe being very raw with God.

And then you hear Joe's friends who are talking a lot about God.

And their theology is very simplistic.

It's like good people get good things, bad people get bad

things, so you must have done something.

Right. Well, and you.

Yeah, how often does that theology creep into our?

Our thoughts. Oh, absolutely.

And so what's interesting is when you get to the end of Job

Job 42:7

chapter 42, verse 7, God makes it very clear, like I'm angry

with your friends because they did not speak accurately about

me. But then he says, but Job did

speak accurately about me, which was kind of mind blowing because

Job does not mince words. He, he is, you know, the day of

my conception, I wish you would just like basically throw it

into utter darkness. I mean, he was just, it was

rough. It was rough.

I mean, you see him just weeping before the Lord sack off and

ashes, like the whole, the whole deal.

And the reason I think that God said that he actually spoke

accurately about him is because Job refused to walk away from

God in terms of the conversation.

He was speaking to God. And So what I kind of laid out

for the students is that there are three ways that we can

really deal with doubt and tension.

There's the silence, there's the beach ball approach.

There's you can talk about God, which a lot of people do, right?

That's what I was doing in seminary.

I was doing a lot of talking about God.

And that can sound really spiritual, religious,

theological. Problem is I wasn't doing a lot

of talking to God and so Job was talking to God.

And so the, the encouragement there is I don't, I don't care

what your doubt is or the tension that you're involved in.

Even going back to what we just talked about the evil and

suffering in the world. Are you talking to God about

those things or you just talking about God, right.

And that's really the the question that I had for them.

I encourage them to really bring those difficult doubts,

intentions to the Lord and have conversations with him about

them rather than just talking about it with friends or or

other people. Clearly we want community

support us in the midst. So I'm not saying don't ever

talk to anybody else about it, just talk to God.

But I do think that that's what's missing is the is

bringing it before the Lord and refusing to walk away from that

conversation saying I don't understand and I'm frustrated.

I don't get it, but I I'm trusting you and I'm here and

I'm talking. Yeah, Job had community.

Yeah, but he didn't have biblical wisdom around him.

No. Yeah, absolutely.

That's a good word. That's a really good word.

Anything you want to add to that, Davis?

No, I mean, I think one thing that Bobby helped our students

with a lot was just recognizing the gap between God being good.

And I mean, he really went back to brokenness of the world, but

saying there's this gap between God being good and the evil that

we experience and the bat. That's kind of the core tension

that we really feel. And the solution isn't more

answers, it actually is faith. And so there's just this piece

where we have to recognize that, OK, God is God and I am not, and

that is OK. And that doesn't mean that all

of this, all of this is OK, but it does mean that I can be OK

like in the midst of this because I, I can have faith in

him who created this and will fix all of this.

Yeah, I'm not a big like equation type guy when it comes

to spirituality for sure. But I think if there is an

equation to like, think about when terms of your relationship

with the Lord and when you have doubt and tension and those

things in your life, I think that it's to practice emotional

honesty, but with spiritual humility.

I think that that's the tension. It's like we, we want to be

honest with the Lord because God is not afraid of our emotions.

So we want to be honest with where we are emotionally, but

then we also want to spiritually be humble.

And, and I think that was really, was really what I saw in

Job is he was very clear about not understanding what was going

on or being frustrated by it and, and just being like what in

the world? But he also, he, he also humbled

himself when God comes out and starts, where were you when I

formed the like, what he was like, all right, he's like, OK.

And I think that's kind of the the mindset we need to have when

we're going to the Lord, just like we don't need to hide

emotions from him as if he can't see those things, but we

certainly do need to humble ourselves and realize that he is

sovereign and the creator of of, of all.

So. There is a God.

You're not him. Yeah, one of the very first

things we we teach our elementary students right.

Yep. And and that is a a through line

here, but really prominent in our last topic salvation and

free will. So I'm glad you were able to put

that one to wreck Davis. Yeah, we've been great time

we've been waiting for, I don't know, couple thousand 1000.

Yeah, we just stopped. We just stopped talking about

it, Al started. To tell us how you wrap that up

in a bow for our students. Yeah, very easily.

No, this is funny because I mean, this is one of those

things that it just like for me, the world that I grew up in,

predestination was like a Christian cuss word.

Like you don't say that because that's not even really true.

So I remember getting to college and like I had never really read

my Bible. So right, that's a tough spot to

be in. And and I was at lunch with

Clark Merritt because our downtown campus and I remember

saying, like, man, predestination, that's

ridiculous. That's not true and he was he

took me to Ephesians 1/5 and he's like, hey, you literally

know the word is the word is in your Bible libel.

And I was like, huh, now that is an interesting point.

And the. Word Trinity is not, but the

word representation is, Yeah. So like for me that was that was

actually a huge moment where I was like, OK, one, I probably

should read my Bible some that would help me a good bit.

And two, just that this is not, it's not cut and dry how we kind

of want to make it at times. And so, I mean, the answer is

the answer is yes, Scott. Yes, Both predestination and

free will are real. So what we did is we kind of

went through and just made a case from Scripture for both,

for both ideas to say, OK, like you can clearly look at

Ephesians and see that God chose.

He knew all of this before the world was formed.

And he chose who was going to be a part of his family, who were

going to be his children, who's going to be adopted.

You see it in Romans. You see it multiple times where

it's like, OK, God, God before the foundations of the earth,

God knew, God chose. Nothing surprises him.

And so there's this truth where God is in control.

Nothing surprises him, especially our salvation,

whether or not we, you know, follow him or not.

Like it's not surprising to him. But at the same time, you go to

the Scriptures and you read other passages and I love and

Deuteronomy where it's the end of Deuteronomy where Moses is

basically like laying out the options they have before them.

And it's just like you choose and I hope you make the right

choice. And it's like, well, if God was

made, if God was in charge and control and nothing surprised

him, then why wouldn't he just make the right choice for you?

But it's like, no, like you have to make the right choice.

And your ancestor, I mean, you're generations beyond this

will either benefit or suffer from the choices that you make

around all this. And it's just this super

interesting thing. And you mentioned where Peter's

talking about it, where he's like, God is being slow because

he wants everyone to be saved as kind of the idea he don't want

anyone to be destroyed. And you're like, well, if God

was in charge and he didn't want anyone to be destroyed, well,

then Bing bang, boom, let's, let's wrap it up right now.

You know, so it's like clearly, OK, our, our choices matter.

We have choices to make and those choices matter.

And so the scriptures just they hold both things out as true.

They don't, they don't even really pit them against each

other. They're just like, no, both

things are obviously true. So we're.

We're the ones that pit them. But we put them against each

other because what we have finite brains and, and there's

this thing where we desire to be able to comprehend something,

right, to be able to understand how something exists and relates

to everything else. And we just, we actually don't

have that capacity, right? If we did have that capacity,

we'd be God. Yeah.

And it competes with faith, with the idea of faith.

Yeah, Yeah. And so for us, I mean, we, we

have to be able to hold these two things and say, OK, we are

creatures, We're not the creator.

There's a God, we're not him, right?

We start, I mean, we teach fusion students that from day

one, but there's a God and I'm not him.

And that, that means that I don't understand how these, the

two things work together. And so there's, there should be

this comfort that comes from the fact that God's in control.

Nothing surprises him. And we should be able to kind of

take that. We should be able to take

comfort in that. But then there's this reality of

this responsibility that we have that our our choices are real

and they do matter. And how those two things

married, I mean, maybe God will explain that to us in eternity,

but maybe not. But still not.

We still want. Yeah, I don't think we're going

to care too much. Yeah, Right.

But no, that's great. That's a, that's a, that's

really, really helpful. And I'm so glad you, you, you

tackled that. And I always think about this

anecdote because this is a seminary story and and if you're

going to get this answer, answer to this question, surely it's

going to be in seminary, right? And so we had AI had a wonderful

mentor, Howard Hendricks, who was it's kind of the, the father

of Bible study methods and everybody loved him.

He was kind of the father of the seminary.

And so he would make himself available to the young man that

we're living in the, the single man's dormitory.

He'd go over on Friday night and they'd have pizza and it was

just like as Prof everything and you know, and he, he would laugh

and he would say every Friday night the conversation is the

same. We start out trying to solve

predestination and free will. And then we end the night trying

to find, talking about how to find a wife.

And he said, so we start here. But really this is the

relational aspect of applying faith in life is really where

everybody is living. And I'm like, you know, that

feels like ministry in the church too.

We have all these big questions, but at the end of the day, like

I'm just trying to make it through today to the next thing

and you guys covered a lot of that in these big questions.

So thanks for doing this. Yeah.

Any closing thoughts on you know what you hope to to to be the

the the the catalytic moment coming out of out of this

series? No, I mean, I think, I think

what we've been talking about, which is the fact that it's OK

to have hard questions. Yeah.

And the place to go with those hard questions is the Scriptures

and community, and you ought to stuff it down.

And Davis Craig's e-mail and my e-mail D Greg at grace dot SZ be

happy to well, thanks. Thanks for listening to to this.

Hopefully you got some insight into student ministry.

Got a little window into a recent series.

If you have Forge students, ask them how it went.

If you know Forge leaders, just encourage them that they're

doing good work and and if you want to be involved in student

ministry, there are places for you to jump in and get involved.

And we would love to love to talk talk with you about that.

Bobby, will you just close our time on this idea of just

trusting God, being able to ask questions, spiritual humility?

Will you just just pray for us? Sure.

Father, we are thankful that you are a God who is sovereign in

control. We are thankful that we cannot

wrap our minds around you because if that was the case,

then then you wouldn't be gone. And so we are, we are

recognizing and admitting that there are hard, difficult

questions that we have as believers, but that you are God

that invites conversation, that has given us your word, that has

revealed yourself to us, and you've revealed our need for

you. And so we just asked that we

would cling to that, that we would just be overwhelmed and in

awe of your gospel each and every day.

We ask for our students who are kind of struggling with some of

these things. And even our parents are adults

that are, that are still having questions and wanting to to kind

of get to the bottom of things that ultimately at the end of

the day, Lord, that we all would just be putting our faith in you

and that we'd be continuing to take one step closer to you and

continuing to grow in your likeness.

And so we again, thank you for what you've done through this

series for our students. And we ask that you would just

continue that work, particularly as we get into retreat month in

Christ, I may pray. Amen.