Ah...

A quick look at the posts before this will reveal that I was not pleased after a certain message. I sat there in frustration wondering why a pastor wouldn't preach from the Word. Not only was all power sucked out from his message, but he also failed to connect with his audience (the only reason I could see why he would preach something other than Scripture).

Then Voddie Baucham restored the pulpit to a place for Biblical preaching.Voddie's text for the morning was Ephesians 6:1-4. In order to do an adequate job, Voddie had to start at Ephesians 5:15. (You can read my understanding of his textual outline here.) Voddie preached a hard hitting message that we are failing with out teens because we are "sealing them in unbelief." By this phrase, he means that we are giving assurance of salvation to students who are not really believers but merely have repeated some magical words. He addresses Christian statistics we have regularly heard:

90% of all converts come to know Christ before age 18.

Of those, 90% come to know Christ before age 14.

88% of students who graduate from youth ministry walk away from their faith in college

.Baucham points out that the statistics, in light of the teaching in 1 John 2:18-20, suggest that many children we are counting as converts aren't really.

From there, he walked through Ephesians 5 and 6 to establish what a Spirit filled person should look like. For a young person, according to Ephesians 6:1-3, obedience to parents is a primary gauge. Baucham laid out that parents are the foremost discipleship tool in a student's life.

Voddie used no powerpoint. There were no visuals. He didn't quote celebrities. He spoke about parenting to a room half-filled with college students (because they stayed after the mandatory chapel). To use a word ruined by a modern mountain marriage, he had the listener "captivated."

Where did the power in the message lie? It wasn't in his catchy form; he didn't try any of the tricks. It wasn't in his pursuit to speak on a relevant catchy topic; parents probably only made up half the room. It wasn't that he spoke in such a way as to avoid debate; there were things in his message I disagreed with.

As he closed the message in prayer, I was closing my Bible...you see, he actually made me open it in the first place!

Thank you Voddie, it tasted so good.