The Next Generation: Forming Middle and High School Students for Lifelong Faith

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Jim Davis
All right welcome to as in Heaven season three. My name is Jim Davis. I’m your host and pastor of Orlando Grace Church. I’m joined by my co host Skylar flowers, who serves as the student pastor at Grace Bible Church in Oxford, Mississippi. Before going to Oxford, Schuyler served as our director of youth ministries here at Orlando Grace Church and he sits on the routed steering committee, an organization we’re going to talk more about in a little bit. Today we have the privilege of being joined by my good friend Cameron Cole, Cameron and I have known each other for some time. We met at RTS Orlando back in the day, when we were both trying to cram a three and a half year degree into a somewhat larger timeframe to President presidencies. We made it we made it Cameron has been the Director of Youth Ministries at the Cathedral Church of the Advent since December of 2005. And in January of 2016, his duties expanded to include children, youth and families. He is the founding chairman of rooted ministry at this an organization that promotes gospel centered youth ministry. He is the CO editor of gospel centered youth ministry, a practice guide, and Cameron is the author of therefore I have hope 12 truths that comfort, sustain and redeem and tragedy. Through his own story of tragedy in his life. Few people have thought through how to take the gospel to our children like Cameron. He’s an incredible guy. He’s a great friend, one of the smartest people I know, and maybe also the biggest Alabama fan that I know, Cameron, we’re really glad to have you here as we talk about this missed generational handoff. Thanks for joining us, man.

Cameron Cole
Thanks for having me. If I’m on the if I’m one of the smarter people, you know, you need to make more friends,

Jim Davis
do you want me to ask you what you made on the SFC.

Cameron Cole
I’m just a public educated kid from the state of Alabama,

Jim Davis
or you forget, I know what you made on the LSAT. I know it very is a gift to the kingdom in many ways. As you know, if you’ve been with us this season on the podcast, we’ve been talking about living in a new context in the US called the great deed churching as between 30 and 50 million people who used to regularly attend church do not anymore, which is changing everything about the society that we live in today, and will continue to in future generations if nothing changes if we stay on the same trajectory. studies tell us that one of the largest exit ramps out there from the church occurs in this timeframe, when students first leave their parent and when students first leave their parents house to go into college and career, which means that if we want to address D churching. In America, as a church, we have to pay very close attention to how we’re building up students for a lifelong faith before they leave their homes, set them up for success. So it means that we’re gonna have to talk about youth ministry, whatever that might look like. There’s no one better I don’t believe to have this conversation with them, Cameron. So, man, thank you so much. I want to before I dive into the first the first question, I want to give an anecdotal story. Last year, I was at a fundraising event. And there was a really well known pastor who was the main keynote speaker, I My job was just a 10 minute little thing on D churches, it was not a significant talk. And so I did my thing, this well known pastor did his thing. And then afterwards, it was just really odd experience because I realized there’s a line of people to talk to me. And this really great pastor was getting coffee by himself. And I was like, when people are wanting to give me business cards and understand our ministry more, and it hit me. I talked about deep churches, and I’m talking about their children and their grandchildren. And there’s nothing in this world that you know, that’s more important to us than our children and grandchildren. My kids are 14 1211 and eight. How old are your kids, Cameron?

Cameron Cole
I’ve got at home. I have a just turned 10 today just turned eight on Sunday, and a five year old. As we say we breed cute kids with magnificent here.

Jim Davis
Well, I say all this to say like I don’t know that there’s anything more important humanly speaking than my children and spiritually speaking that they would know Jesus and have a fruitful life with him. So here’s the first question, Cameron, I just want to lead off by asking you, you’ve been in youth ministry for 20 years, you founded the ministry that is geared towards equipping parents and youth ministers for Reaching and building up students, we did a study, you know, we own what is currently the most comprehensive and detailed, nationwide quantitative academic study on D churching. And one of the things that stuck out to me and all of us at the team, the period, the time period, when people would say their faith was the strongest was the time in their home leading up to the teenage years. And then the time period where their faith was the most challenging or weakest was the time period right after that. So the time period of greatest faith, and least faith or easiest to be a Christian hardest to be Christian, we’re right next to each other in this time period. So why is it that you see the time period between sixth and 12th grade so challenging, and so crucial to people’s lives?

Cameron Cole
That’s a great question, John, you know, I think that, um, I think on one hand, there’s just so much developmentally going on in that time period, and so much of that is leading toward a child becoming independent. And so so with that being said, you know, developmentally have a child, they’re thinking about where they fit into a group, they’re striving for independence, they have a ton going on, physically, and physiologically, it’s just this kind of avalanche avalanche going on developmentally. And then, you know, another thing too, I would say is that this is more true in middle class and upper middle class suburban settings, but six to 12. Kids, kids start to spend less and less time with their parents. And in our country, today, too frequently, what’s happening is kids get over scheduled. And things like regular church tennis become less of a priority. And so um, yeah, so you know, you’re you’re preparing a child, you know, when you’re when a child hits adolescence, particularly when they hit like 10th grade, you’re trying to prepare them for the real world. And I have a friend who is a pastor up in North Carolina, and he, what he does with his kids, their senior year of high school, is they don’t have a curfew, they don’t have any restrictions on their phone at all, they can essentially do whatever they want. And his thinking, and that, to me, seems kind of crazy. Like, well, I’ve got an 18 year old, and I’m gonna let them do whatever they want. It’s thinking as well, they’re gonna be able do whatever they want, next year college. And so I’m gonna let them I’m gonna let them you know, have total freedom under my roof for a year. I think a lot of think a lot of parents are thinking in such a protection perfectionistic mindset, that they’re not thinking about preparing their kids, they’re just trying to insulate them from bad decisions. And where you really need to be thinking about preparing them. I think another thing as well, is that, you know, biblical literacy is so, so bad in our country. So theological literacy amongst, you know, believers. And I think we do have to ask the question before sixth grade, how well how well grounded our kids in the Bible, and how well catechized our children, you know, because that’s when the kids really need to really firm and strong foundation, when they before they get into middle school, they do start to you know, they do start thinking independently, they do start to want to think for themselves. And, you know, they already need those foundations before, before, you know, before they enter into adolescence, and so, you know, well, I think that six or 12, there’s a ton going on developmentally, what are we thinking about preparing them for the real world, we want to be, you know, allowing them to ask questions and to nurture their doubts. Or I should say, honor their doubts, things that nurture their doubts, honor their doubts. Um, but before that, kids really didn’t have a strong knowledge and strong biblical literacy and a strong theological literacy.

Jim Davis
Well, let me I want to follow up real quick, on that you touched two points that I think are. Well, so we saw in our study, one of the things people who left the church in this age range have said is church wasn’t a place where they could be honest about their doubts. So it’s, it’s gonna be a two part follow up. So, church, what does that look like? And then the second thing that we heard is when I got to high school church really wasn’t a priority. Our sports were my parents made already. So can you just you touched on those two things a little bit? Can you flesh that out a little bit?

Cameron Cole
Yeah, um, that’s great. So So it’s interesting and Paul David Tripp on this first question about allowing kids to, you know, raise questions while they were chips talks about, you know, how surprised we are by kids sin. It’s like we believe in sin, but we’re stunned that our kids are gonna and how inconvenient it is when our kids make mistakes and we’re, you know, No, we just see that as just like, how could you do this? How could you be such an inconvenience when in reality, don’t get mad at a child for needing parenting? Estrogen. So, you know, on one hand, I think that, you know, a big theme I think of this whole conversation is just evangelical parents in particular living in fear, operating out of fear. And so you hear a child ask a question expressed doubt. And the slippery slope starts to come like, Oh, my goodness, this means that they’re gonna be an atheist. They’re gonna be, you know, dealing, dealing meth on the street corner in jail, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, from dealing meth. Right. But, um, but in reality, like I so are we surprised that a 14 year old or a 15 year old or a 17 year old has questions about the fate? are we surprised that a 35 year old or a 45 year old or a 55 year old has questions about faith, we’re flawed human beings. So I think that because the Christian parents, minister or parents have a position of fear that we just kind of tamp that kind of stuff down. And we don’t want to open up that what we perceive to be a Pandora’s box. So two things practically, I would say. Number one, we need to explicitly and reasonably say to kids, like, Hey, if you have questions, like we need to talk about that, you know, play the devil’s advocate, you know, one of the questions swirling in your mind, there’s a good chance that I have had those questions, or I struggle struggle with those questions, too. I just, you know, this, the reality of who we see human beings to be in Scripture suggests that we’re obviously compared to an omniscient God. Gotta have not going to have all the answers, you know. And so I think you want to encourage that a second thing you want to do is, and that’s not just that a lot of that is not just what you say, it’s also what you do. You know, like when people have when people express questions, because Express questions, or you hear people in the culture Express questions. Um, I think it’s really important to say, you know, hey, that’s a valid question. I can understand why a person would have that question. Um, you know, I mean, just this one example, if you’re not a Christian, like, homosexual, like, why would you oppose homosexuality? Why would you oppose gay marriage? If you’re not a believer? You know, like, that’s a, it makes sense that if, if you, you know, if you buy into the ethos and the morality of this world, that’s kind of its kind of logical, yeah. Do you think that this life is a it’s kind of logical, that you know, to follow your desires and pursue pleasure? Whatever that is, according to you. Kind of makes sense. We shouldn’t be. shouldn’t be surprised. So we need to be careful not to just degrade and diminish opposing views. But say, like, I can see how a person would think that Disney is it because you’re modeling to your child like, Hey, do you have that question, too? Let’s not you know, you’re safe to come to me. The other thing too, is character care. Powell for Youth Institute. She’s talked about how doing kind of like pre emptive pre emptive apologetics in the sense where, you know, like, the way I do this is we watch the reason for God videos. Tim Keller, did you watch that with kids when they’re seniors? And it’s Tim Keller sitting there? 8599? No,

Jim Davis
it well, it’s an incredible series. This is great. And

Cameron Cole
it’s people from various non Christian worldviews. Talking about the six biggest objections to the Christian faith and so something that we’ll do is we’ll I’ll play the devil’s advocate, and I’ll be anti the atheist. Now, I’ll ask the kids all I can to start out and I’ll ask our kids like, why do you believe this? Why do you believe this? Why do you believe that and I just kind of push them on things and help them to, you know, kind of Deacon deconstructive, we can use that word. But kind of like, you know, prepare them for what that kid who was in debate in high school, and he read all the like, very pseudo intellectual, but seemingly convincing me of atheism. You know what that kid who’s going to be in the dorm with this, this young person next year in college is going to say to them, what the philosophy professor if they go to college is going to say to them, or you know, what they’re going to read see on the internet on YouTube, it’s unbelievable how many YouTubers there are, who are dedicated to trying to deconstruct Christianity, they sound so condensing. In reality, if you have a person, like the three of us who has a theological education, these people are actually really, really dumb. I mean, I shouldn’t say they’re dumb, but they’re, you know, philosophically not really very strongly to

Jim Davis
one one semester of psychology was that they took one semester of psychology and now they To the expert. All right, so go ahead. So yeah,

Cameron Cole
so that was the first that was kind of the first, how do we nurture doubt?

Jim Davis
In sports? A lot of, you know, a number of people who left the church in this timeframe, we, they said, well, we just kind of stopped going to church, my parents decided to prioritize our sports. And so, you know, I just never went back.

Cameron Cole
Yeah, okay. So, you know, if there are parents listening to this, like, you need to hear this, and I’m gonna come off the top rope, WWE style here. This is something that Colin Hansen and I are both. Colin, he’s, you know, with the gospel coalition, that he and I are both just like hammering right now. And it’s, it’s something that I tried an article about it called just go to

Jim Davis
church. That’s all it was great. You should cite.

Cameron Cole
But basically, you know, you there’s, there’s a study that’s been done over the last 10 years by Christian Smith, who really is the leading expert on teenage spirituality of this century, he read did a study in 2000 2010, on this national study on youth and religion, and now he’s done another one, looking at the spiritual impact of parents on their kids. And the book is called handing down the Fae, tuffrey kind of academic, but it’s worth looking at. But parents, what do you see is that a kid is not going to exceed your religious commitment. That’s like, Colin said, this is a fundraiser couple of weeks ago.

Jim Davis
He told me, I know, I know where you’re going. And I’m excited to hear you say it.

Cameron Cole
It’s like, hey, so if if you really want your church to your child to attend church every week, the growing up, y’all, you as a family went to church once a month, your child’s not going to exceed that. Yeah, it’s not that they’re leaving the church is that when they were a teenager, they weren’t in the church, it was like, you know, it’s like, travel sports, travel sports, actually, D church them and you participate, not to throw I mean, not to make anybody feel guilty or whatnot, but, but there’s just a reality. Like, you, you know, that this study says that basically, parents and what they model have the, by far the biggest impact on kids spiritual life. And, you know, the, the two biggest factors and proliferating, that are promoting that child’s lifelong faith is having spiritual conversations, and just very basic level, just bringing life back to Jesus, and go in church. And so, um, and then then the other the other big factor was, you know, the parents, parents who were, you know, healthy, loving, but also this, you know, discipline disciplinarian is that balance, they found basically, the, the, you know, the, it wasn’t just like, go to church and talk about Jesus. There was also like, what was the posture and the tone of your parenting? I found that parents who are overly permissive, who have no discipline, although they’re connected with their kids, and parents who are authoritative. They are sorry, like authoritarian, the who were very, very strict and controlling, but didn’t really were very kind. Marguerite humble, this parents, their kids really didn’t want much to do with those parents faith. Whereas parents who did that did discipline kids, they were the adult, but they also love their kids, and were kind and humble and emotionally connected that kids by and large, very much wanted to embrace their parents safe. So a lot of it has to do with character character that the parents demonstrated. Yeah,

Skyler Flowers
well, in filling in both of those kind of those two factors that you just mentioned, one of the things I always I remember when I was in college, I was sitting in a philosophy of religion class. And the professor asked a question, basically, raise your hand if you grew up in a Christian church, and this is a university in the deep south. So pretty much everyone in there had some sort of religious upbringing. And then he asked, raise your hand if you felt comfortable asking questions, and no one raised their hand. And so over the course of the next semester, this professor was easily able to dismantle faith after faith, because this was the first time someone was intellectually engaging with many of these students on their faith. They were like, well, thank you where I grew up, no one would actually talk to me about these things. And I actually don’t think this professor meant to be antagonistic as much as he was just trying to raise questions. And so one things. One thing I’m always talking to my students about in our youth ministry is one like cameras are just affirming, hey, actually asking questions is an act of faith in and of itself, because it’s saying we believe God is a God of truth. We believe that he has revealed these things just we should not be scared of seeking out answers to questions, but it’s all So treating them as serious individuals, treating them as people who have intellectual ability of their own to think through these things and who have faith of their own. And I think like you said, Cameron, a lot of times when we’re trying to just insulate them away from questions, insulate them away from objections from the world, what we’re really doing is saying one day, you’re gonna get out there, and you’re just gonna get hammered by the world. But the reality is the world from the time that they’re 12 on YouTube is not treating them as children, tic TOCs, not treating them as children, social, social meeting schools, not treating them as children, all you got to do is look at what’s written on the bathroom wall and see that it’s not treating them as children, right? These kids are being confronted with real adult conversations younger and younger every year. And so as a church, I feel like that’s where we have to be able to step into that gap and say, We’re not going to treat you as children, either. We’re going to actually engage here. But Kevin, second, I kind of want to give you an opportunity to share a little bit of rooted history and rooted story because without actually calling it as such, I know rooted story very well from having been involved in the ministry. But I feel like without y’all calling it a such, a lot of what we’re talking about this season is what rooted began to talk about and engage a decade ago, talking about the church and why people are leaving the church. So could you give us a little bit of a brief history of rooted and what it was that you’re seeking to address during that time?

Cameron Cole
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for asking. Yeah, so rooted is. It’s a ministry that empowers and equips parents and youth and family pastors, to disciple kids towards lifelong faith, like our lifelong faith in Christ. Everyone’s gonna have lifelong faith in something it might be themselves. Yeah, in Christ. And then, you know, our vision is that every child would receive grace filled gospel centered Bible saturated discipleship at church and at home. So, you know, for me, the norm kind of growing up was generally like, you go down, you play a lot of games. You know, get a lesson about not having premarital sex and not drinking. And then you play like the fire to emotionally motivate everybody to be good for a week and not make any bad decisions. And, um, and yeah, we want the normal experience for a kid in church to be is that they would say that they heard about the grace of Jesus to the cross every week, they were taught the Bible in a substantive way every week. And it wasn’t just their youth ministry, but it was their parents, their church and youth ministry as a whole that ministered to them in that way. And so the issue that we’re kind of addressing are kind of came onto the scene in response to us. And around the turn of the century, that there was a switch Collie dog as like 22 years ago. Holy cow. In old Oregon, oh, man, we were like halfway through college. Shimmy Massimino? Yeah. But um, basically, they they looked at the efficacy of churches and forming kids that lasting faith and they were finding that kids, we’re not kids. We’re not misfits. We’re not sticking with Christ in the church. Yesterday percent of kids were leaving the church. And so churches were terribly ineffective at forming kids with lasting faith. So the second round of research looked at why why is it that kids are not sticking and they kind of found three factors with one being the dominant factor. One was kids without being integrated into the church. They were in nursery, a children’s chapel youth worship youth group. So they weren’t learning how to be servants and worshipers in the church. And someone that went out to the real world, there was a social barrier for them being a part of a church. Second was participation of parents. Churches, were doing a terrible job at equipping and educating parents on how to spiritually invest with their kids, so that your kids, parents were kind of outsourcing their kids, their kids spiritualize to the church, like he would outsource, you know, piano to the music teacher, you know, athletics to the Little League. And then finally, biggest actors theology and what kids what kids believed, was pretty much antithetical to basic Biblical Christianity. Turn they used probably you’ll probably use it every other episode, but moralistic therapeutic deism. Kids understood Christianity as a set of rules. Therapeutic they thought the point of Christianity was to be happy and to bolster their self esteem. And DSA review the character of God is that He was distant, not involved in your life, if you had an emergency would come, but otherwise, you know, you live independent lives. And so yeah, the thing is that so much of the model for youth ministry has been just entertainment and emotions and rules. There wasn’t as it wasn’t like biblical gospel centered discipleship. And so it’s really what we’re trying to to do is, is to promote, to promote that, you know, Graceville, gospel centered Bible saturated discipleship, because the, what you find is that I mean give you a sense of how what you find is that kids knowing the basic gospel of grace is probably the single biggest indicator of whether whether they’ll stick with Christ or not. The kid under doesn’t understand the gospel and thinks of Christianity in terms of rules. They’re not going to stick with, with, with what Jesus they but if they do understand Christianity, as Christianity as in terms of Jesus died for my sins, God loves me unconditionally through that, and my life is lived. In response, my obedience is in response to God first loving me, that child actually has a pretty high likelihood of being a church tending Christian. So that being said, with really what we’re trying to do is, is promote graceful gospel centered youth ministry, and with a lot of biblical depth and richness. And so that’s where the five pillars came from. That, you know, we talked about quite a bit.

Skyler Flowers
Yeah, and so these five pillars that y’all talk about are gospel centrality, theological depth, relational discipleship, partnerships with parents and intergenerational integration. And just reading those, you know, as a minister, you would think, okay, some of these jump out as as obvious, okay. Yes, being involved relationally in the life of students makes sense for why that would shepherd them into lifelong thing, or teaching with gospel centrality. But there’s also some that I think for many people who are involved with student ministry, or even parents and sink, how can we integrate our children to the life of the church would jump out is less obvious, like intergenerational integration? Right. And so one of the main factors that in the research that we’ve been able to look at and see is that there’s been this generational handoff that’s been completely missed, right? Where generations are missing, the ability to pass on lifelong fakes, either that’s from parents to children, or even from just societally passing on faith from generation to generation. So why is it that you guys look at some of these pillars, and maybe even specifically intergenerational integration and see that is so crucial to countering the movement of students outside of the church? I mean, to some ministers, I think that actually would be counter intuitive to bring other generations into your youth ministry.

Cameron Cole
Yeah, totally. Um, and more than that, probably putting kids into the broader ministry of the church. So So would you like me to focus more on the intergenerational peace? Or maybe even go through all of them a little bit? Oh, yeah, just go. You can walk through, through all that’s all right. Yeah. I mean, gospel centrality, I’ve already alluded to that. But um, it’s interesting in 2014, and the Christianity today or article, Cara Powell, who’s, you know, Christian Smith, Kara power, probably to the two most significant figures too optimistic, negative figures in this study of kids sticking with Christ and the church. She was asked, you know, what would you say is the most important indicator, and she said, if a kid knows the Christianity in terms of the gospel of grace, it’s the most important indicator record sticking. And so here’s the deal, though, um, in that study, the national study on youth and religion. Yeah, they interviewed kids, they spent 350 hours asking kids, sorry, they asked 350 Kids, talk about your religious beliefs for 30 minutes. And so that’s 175 hours of interviews, not a single kid mentioned the word gospel. And 175 hours, the word grace in terms of God’s unmerited love for Senators was used three times. And so the reason I bring that up is because we a lot of times presume that kids know that. And you cannot prevent that. And honestly, we forget it every day. But you know, they, in one of another study, they asked kids, you know, defined the gospel. 35% of kids didn’t even mention Jesus. Wow, almost half the kids defined the gospel as being a good person for God. So you know, that that, that caught my attention a long time ago. So we have something called the gospel catechism that we do in our church. We do it every week with every Bible study with every children’s Sunday school class. I do with my kids every day when I drop them off school. What does gospel mean good news. What’s the good news? Jesus died for my sins Why did after since I can have a relationship with him? He loves you the most God He loves you second is Mommy and Daddy What can you do about God’s power and grace coordinates? And just you know so that’s what that’s what my kids hear every day when they get out of the car and go to school. Have another call the gospel identity categorizing that we do with teenagers? That is, it is the Holy Spirit say you are one is Washington coin it clean. Who does Jesus say you are one who is forgiven or righteous? Who’s got a father say you are an adopted child. God, who are you? I’m a sinner saved by grace, just is just reinforcing the identity. My identity is in Christ. My identity is defined by what Jesus has done and what he’s confirmed to me. by grace through faith.

Jim Davis
Man, I think you have just made some modifications to the Davis family trip to school in the morning. Yeah, thank you.

Cameron Cole
Yeah, man. But this, this is like a thing. This is part of what we, part of what we do in our church family, is categorizing kids in the Gospel. And so my the thing I say, you know, people say, Well, you know, great, the great thing is obvious. Well, actually, isn’t I mean, isn’t that obvious? Like, you know, Pat Lencioni, he’s a guru on cold culture and leadership and Corporation says talks about over communication. And like, the Gospel needs to be over, communicated and modeled, but you know, and then theological depth, like, I’m a big I’m a, I mean, I’m a believer in the Catechism. You know, I mean, it doesn’t have to be super sophisticated, fancy, you don’t have to memorize the Westminster larger catechism or anything like that. But like the gospel, the new city catechism, that the gospel coalition published, that is a valuable tool, and you can just listen to the music in your car. But you know, like, between the Catechism, but also just teaching through books of the Bible, like your kid can get all the theology they’re going to need. And, and so that’s what we’re with read. And we’re such big fans of inductive Bible study. Because it gives inductive Bible study teaching through whole books, the Bible does so much to give kids a theological base. And that’s why I think, really, we have like 15 books in the Bible, of like inductive Bible study from beginning to end. Um, and then, you know, relational discipleship, that’s pretty obvious. But I will say for people who are reformed leaning, a lot of times we’re so big on like, the head knowledge. But we forget, like you got you got to to mentor kids, you got to disciple them and walk them relationship. And knowledge doesn’t have enough, you know, there has to be there has to be relationship,

Jim Davis
intergenerational, and explain how that theology answers the questions, the real questions they have in the world going back to whether it’s doubt, or they’re not

Skyler Flowers
involved in their lives, they’re not going to believe that you care about their lives, they’re not going to believe that this gospel is applicable to their lives.

Cameron Cole
As they say, scholar, they don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care

Skyler Flowers
deserve desert right spot on.

Cameron Cole
Me now you just teed me up for a good old cheesy, cheesy mantra or slogan, but it actually is true. Intergenerational integration, let’s let’s set up shop here for a second because, um, this is a big one. And in terms of like, practical, concrete things that you can do that make a huge difference. Um, you know, intergenerational integration is one of those. And so what we mean by that is, like, the thinking for a long time had been like, Well, kids don’t really understand the sermon, and they’re kind of a distraction. So let’s get let’s not have them in the worship service. You know, let’s until like they’re in middle school or high school, they don’t want to be there. Let’s just move out, well, actually, what you find is, number one, is that the earlier you get kids in church, the higher likelihood that they’re going to be a church to the Christian, there’s a there’s a direct correlation between those two. And, like, so much of what’s going on is not ice and you kind of in parenting, it’s, you know, modeling, your values are more caught than they are taught. And so you know, to be in a church service, where they see you singing, they seem you gonna participate in liturgy to see you listen to the sermon, taking notes, whatever, that they learn a ton from that. And so getting kids and worship services early is really good. Don’t have to be there the whole time. You know, you don’t, there’s no need to have three year old in there for an hour and a half long service, but, you know, at least in increments early on, is really good. And then and then to this is this big guy here, this one is you wanted to treat kids like adults. And so this is this is the mindset that we have in this one I encourage and that is by the time a kid is say in the 10th grade, you want them to be functioning like a contributing adult in your church. So you want to be you know, as a when you’re doing children’s ministry doing youth ministry, you want to be thinking like okay, when this kids 15 or 16 I want them to be able to lead a middle school Bible study. I want them to be a reliable faithful children’s Sunday school teacher, I want them to be able to play in our you know, in our youth and our sorry, our congregations worship and if that’s something you have, um, or if you’re in a liturgical setting like me, we have acolytes quite honestly that’s it. That’s a real I know you Guys are a little bit low church. But um, for high church folks, um, you know, having kids participate in the worship service like reading scripture, singing in the choir, you know, playing an instrument in the band playing tennis, you know, whatever it may be, is a man, it’s a you play, you can play some serious winning football with that. There. So it’s remarkable the studies on when kids are have a role of the church where it’s meaningful. And they’re treated like an adult, they’re counted on for something, you know, substantive. The likelihood of there’ll be a church tending Christian is very high, particularly teaching children’s Sunday school. And, um, yeah, they really, even if there’s one study that says, even if they’re doing it to get out of the worship service, those kids are super, super highly likely to be churches and Christian, when I read that study, the we started pumping into children’s ministry, we have 15 or 16 Kids, we help out with children’s ministry. And quite honestly, a lot of more best children’s ministry teachers and volunteers

Jim Davis
did now you’re changing. In our church,

Cameron Cole
I have a couple we have a couple of kids a couple of like high school kids in our church where the, the parents like kind of just like take a back seat, and they just take, they take the cues and orders from the high school kid,

Skyler Flowers
right. But it makes sense, because when you’re teaching children Sunday school, I found this a challenge whenever I was teaching children Sunday school sometimes is you’re having to articulate the gospel. And its most basic and simple terms, like you’re learning week after week to communicate gospel, in its most simple terms to children. So these students are just being, again, again, catechized. But they’re by teaching. And so, which is a call for each one of us in our churches to analyze. We say we want students involved in our church, you know, people are always like, we want more youth in the church or whatever. But how open is your church to students? And that’s the real question. Like you said, could they read Scripture? Could they be in the children’s ministry? Could they you know, set up coffee, or do parking, whatever it may be, it’s how open is our church is really to students. And it’s really a call to kind of do a whole, you know, animal analysis of our church and see where our students even welcome here.

Cameron Cole
Yeah, and there’s also too, you know, we’re talking a lot about from a church leadership standpoint about this kind of stuff. But if you’re a layperson it’s, it’s remarkable how powerful it is that you know, the names of kids, that you encourage them that you’re kind to them. Um, it’s, there’s, there’s another study that looked at how I need to be able to be like, it was this study, this time, this publication, just read them all over the last like, you know, 15 years and I had four kids and it happens. It’s busy. Yeah. And, and Jimmy Massimino and I did, did the RTS, you know, death march together. Anyhow. But there was another study basically found now that, you know, there’s a correlation between a kid and ask a kid, you know, how many people in your church like, knew you and had an interest in your spiritual life other than your parents, who are outside your generation, and there’s, you know, correlation between the more the higher, like, you know, they’d be at church, Tinder. So yeah, just being up just learning the names of kids, encouraging them, and you know, especially if they’re doing you know, they read scripture, Oh, you did a good job and playing the game? Oh, yeah. It’s so great that you do that, how the mission trip to, you know, to the delta Go, whatever, whatever it is you’re doing. And so yeah, there’s that any everyone in the church can really play a vital role just by being friendly and getting to know kids? Because you want with that being said, you’re building a paradigm for what church is for a kid? Yes. So I will say for my children, like their experiences, there are all these people who love me, there are always people who know me, there are all these people who celebrate me, like they, they love church. And, and, you know, they like to help out with the gun Americans are young, but they help out with making the stuff for VBS you know, like the decorations and whatnot. And they just, they just really like if they’re excited about being an Acolyte. They’re, you know, all that kind of stuff. And, and so that’s the, that’s what church is to them. So when they leave, they’re gonna say, hey, church is a place where I’m loved church someplace where I have a high I have a place I have a part, because a long way.

Jim Davis
Well, and I love how you talk about little ones in worship. And you know, in our context, we’re not necessarily dogmatic about it. There are options based on different family situations, but it always has amazed me how much my kids pick up. You know, when they’re little. We sing a new song in church they’ve never heard on the radio or at home, and that evening, they’re just playing with blocks and singing that song. One, one service before I got up to preach, my daughter was probably in secondary Third grade. And I leaned over and I said, Hey, IV, I’m not feeling too well, I might need you to go up and preach a sermon for me just messing with her. And she said, I got it, daddy. I was like, Well, what would you say? She said, you’re all sinners, and you need God. Second grade, that’s better than 80% of the sermons preached on a Sunday, probably. But, you know, then I go up to my 14, about to be 15 year old. And, you know, I can, and I feel like I’m somewhat engaged with similar students, college students, I’m somewhat engaged in culture. And I feel like I mean, weekly, he’s asking me about a social media platform I didn’t even know existed. He’s using words I’ve never heard before. I mean, again, I feel like I’m somewhat connected to culture, and it feels like culture is moving faster than me. I think for the average parent of a teenager, we, you know, we feel just like, how do I catch up? I don’t even know what my kids are being exposed to. So how can I? How can I prepare them for some part of the culture I don’t even know exists? So I mean, the rate of change is happening, amazingly fast. So what are How can parents and ministers feel confident that they’re reaching students or kids grandkids, where they are at and ministering them in a way that actually engages them without trading in their commitment to the pillars that you’re talking about?

Cameron Cole
That’s, that’s a really good question, gentlemen. I think it’s something that a lot of parents or even like youth pastors, it’s an insecurity or a fear that they struggle with. And I just want to first first like, right out of the gates, let everybody listening to this. Now I have done youth ministry really for about 20 years. professionally for 18. I am not cool at all. I’m not cool at all. And I’m really not that much fun. I don’t know any games, probably no any games. And, and like when I say like, I’m not cool. I couldn’t tell you. Any of like the pop artists who are big right now. I don’t I just don’t know any of that. And I hate to say this. I’m a huge Alabama football fan. I couldn’t tell you five major league baseball players. I don’t know if I could tell you 10 NBA players. Um, I don’t really know what hockey is be honest with you. I don’t know. 12 hockey teams. I just don’t I’m not that up to date on movies. I’ve never in my entire life. seen one of the Marvel movies? Not only not how, yeah, not only I’m not into it, that my thing. And, um, and so and yeah, I’ve, you know, I’ve been able to, like, effectively do youth ministry for a long time. And so, um, so that being said, like kids are way more interested in a person who is who is, you know, comfortable in their own skin. Not trying, not trying too hard to be impressive or cool. And someone who listens to them. And who asked them engaging questions about their life and pursues them, maybe just genuinely care if that trumps being cool being relevant every day. On top of that, you know, when it comes to, you know, comes to all the, the questions that kids ask, and the changing culture and those kinds of things. You know, one thing we can take comfort in on is that the truth of God’s word is timeless. It’s timeless. And so like, I think a trap we can fall into is feeling like okay, we have tactically got to anticipate every question that a kid is going to have, and give them the answer to that specific question. Well, I think we’re a lot better off teaching kids like the some some basic biblical, conceptual frameworks, um, why creation, fall, redemption, glorification. And you can run pretty much any question that a child asked through creation, fall, redemption, glorification. And like, whether it’s questions about sexuality or gender identity, or you know, evil in the world, whatever. I mean, you can explain all those in terms of guiding the creation world, the fall because of sin, God’s work in the world through his grace through you know, through the work of Jesus Christ, and the work of Holy Spirit and then we have of Heaven or you know, things like the now and the not yet. You know, the overlapping of the age to come and of the present evil age like phenomena. Yeah, that’s going to help you answer a lot of questions, particularly when it comes to suffering and evil in the world. And you know, how is that how is that possible? under a given, you know what Jesus has done and the goodness of God, and that sorry, get ready to vomit. I’m gonna talk about Nick Saban get a barf bag. He was asked, you know, why do you why do you still do a pro style offense? And he said, because the pro style offense has every has, it has an answer for every defense, personal offense is a concept based offense. Whereas a lot of other wins are more like, Hey, we got to replay this, we’re gonna run and then that doesn’t have the ability that kind of doesn’t have the ability to check out of the play. Defense isn’t favorable. And so personal offense is conceptual. Things that are conceptual, take longer to learn. Take a lot more reinforcement, but once you learn on that concept, any defense that is thrown at you on field, the press offense has an answer to you. And so that’s the same thing with good, biblical, conceptual framework. So, um, so anyhow, um, so I would just I think we don’t need to, I think having a few of those go to us, like creation, fall, redemption, glorification. Um, the now not yet. So things like that, that we just that we hammer and bring everything back to actually, you know, serve to prepare a kid because, hey, shoot, who knows what’s going to life’s gonna look like in 10 years? Holy cow. Think about like, you know, back in 2010 Hardly anybody has a smartphone, there’s no Instagram. There’s a Snapchat there’s no tick tock, how did you know boys were boys and girls or girls? For the most part, and, um, and now, you know, life has just changed so fast, it’s gonna change even faster. So. But yeah, God, God, who he is the narrative we live under through Christ, the, you know, the narrative that we see, of life and scripture, like, timeless, and it’s the pro style offense, you know, it’s got the answer for any defense.

Jim Davis
And, you know, I, I’m thinking, as you’re talking, all the things are changing at a rapid pace, that we’re not the first generation to experience this my great grandmother, when she was born, the mode of transportation was horse and wagon. And she saw a man on the moon. So like, we’re not the first generation to experience massive technological, rational change. And I just so appreciate the humility in your answer, you know, being able to use an Alabama illustration when you had so many losses last season. So, thanks.

Cameron Cole
You know, my daughter coming into this season, she turned 10. Today, she had seen 11 losses in her entire life. Is that not insane? Like I

Skyler Flowers
think that almost national titles 10 years for two seasons of my life.

Jim Davis
All right. All right. Listen, I can’t I can’t not, um, Florida State when and we’re gonna go to our last question in just a second. But when I was I think it was 22 when Miami came in and beat us at home. And it was the first time we’d lost at home since I was 11 years old.

Cameron Cole
Oh, my stars. That’s amazing. Well, that’s the first how many years? Were they undefeated in the ACC? Oh, it

Jim Davis
was crazy. Yeah. Yeah. From 88 to 2002. Worst ranking fourth in the nation. Alright, we digress I’ve gotten I think it gives us a little they hear what we talked about offline. All right. Cameron, as we land the plane here, you know, if someone wants to go further, they want to see more resources, whether it’s from rooted or elsewhere. What, what kinds of resources would you recommend to parents, youth pastors, church leaders on this topic?

Cameron Cole
Yeah. All talk particularly about what read it has? Yeah, I mean, our blog is awesome. Skyler writes on it. He does. He does he put out three articles a week for youth pastors, youth and family stuff, and then three articles a week for parents, and we have an incredibly good resources tab. So a lot of these topics that you’re going to get you’re wondering about, go to the Resources tab and look it up you can probably find, you know, three or four, maybe half dozen articles on just about anything you want. I also have some we have five different podcast channels. Um, you know, one of which is rooted parent, that’s when I’m on with Anna Harris, Teen Mom. And that’s just talking about Scripture, the gospel and parenting in real youth ministry, every conference, which has old conference content, so good, so so good. So um, so, you know, ask Alice has to do with teen mental health. And, and so this has to do with, you know, youth culture, and they’re really in the comic books, the the Marvel stuff, they don’t have any of it. So I didn’t know what Danis fast was when they made it. So. So yeah, I mean, I really recommend that we read it. I came up with something really cool. I recommend for churches called it’s called Rooted reservoir, family discipleship. And it’s a basically it has eight courses, their video courses from authoritative voices with interactive Bible study, but it’s stuff on like how to talk to It’s about sex, how to integrate Christian practice into your, into your family. In this stuff about technology, it’s just the law and gospel and parenting, shaming grace and parenting dynamics of the gospel in an immigrant family. So it’s it’s, it’s a if a church subscribes to it, everyone, anyone in the church can access it. So it’s a genome, it’s only $250 per year since a kind of steal.

Skyler Flowers
Yeah, Rudy reservoir has tons of resources we use them. He was Cameron mentioned the index of Bible studies and how important that is rooted. The root of reservoir if you’re a youth minister, if you’re a parent, if you’re a small group, and you’re looking for small group material and everything we use it for every series we do, if someone’s speaking in our youth group, or if they’re leading a Bible study, we always make sure and send them the written reservoir material. It’s very well written, it’s contextualized. And it’s asking real life questions to the students. So that’s a that’s a high recommend for me on the route of reservoir material for the Bible studies. And also like Cameron mentioned for the parenting resources.

Cameron Cole
Yeah, I use it. I use it to reservoir for youth ministry too. I mean, it’s got all these video courses to train like new volunteers and new youth pastors and Bible study teachers has courses for how to use the Bible to teenagers course on gospel youth ministry courses for elders on how to make a good hire and how to you know, search committees that has its money. That’s really good. And then the Bible studies so good. It’s all inductive. Begins begins with the gospel catechism ends with a gospel nugget. It’s mine.

Jim Davis
Well, Cameron, I really appreciate you join us today any excuse me any excuse to hang out with you all we’ll figure it out. It’s we’re really thankful for the work you’re doing. And I’m dead serious when I say they’re things about my own family and church that I’m already thinking about modifying from this this time with us today. So man, thank you so much.

Cameron Cole
Thanks for having me. Yes. Hottie tottie.

Jim Davis
will join us next week. Next episode is going we’re going to take this one step further. And we’ve been in sixth to 12th grade we’re going to be talking college ministry and and how college Miss we have some amazing statistics and the research and how crucial college the college years are some very hopeful things we found. So we will be back next with that episode. Blessings