Understanding Redemption Youth (Genesis 1:26-31)
SERMON NOTES
Sermon Series: Family Ministry
Sermon Title: Understanding Redemption Youth
Sermon Text: Genesis 1:26-31
Big Question: How can we best help the children in our lives become and remain faithful followers of Jesus?
Big Idea: Our ability to help children become lifelong followers of Jesus is directly tied to our willingness as God’s image bearers to empty ourselves for the benefit of the children and families around us.
1. What does it mean to be an image bearer of God?
It means, like Jesus, emptying ourselves for the benefit of those around us (see Genesis 1:26-31, Genesis 3, and Philippians 2:5-11)
2. How might being an image bearer of God shape our relationship with the children and families in our lives?
Four ways parents can increase likelihood their children will remain Christians into adulthood:
Have warm and loving relationships with them
Have child-centered conversations about faith with them
Regularly attend church but not make church the only thing you do
Be consistent in the spiritual practices you do and the reasons you do them
We should empty ourselves for the benefit of the children and families in our lives.
3. How has all of the above informed what we do in Redemption Youth?
It encourages us to strive to empty ourselves through supporting and supplementing the parent-child discipleship relationship.
Footnotes
For more information on the history of Protestant Youth Ministry in America, see Mark H. Senter III, When God Shows Up: A History of Protestant Youth Ministry in America (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010).
The four ways parents can increase the likelihood their children will remain Christians into adulthood comes from the research done by Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk, Handing Down the Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).
