Taking in The World Through New Eyes

The grocery store was busy for a Wednesday afternoon. People buzzed in and out of the aisles. As I stood there, waiting for my mom to hurry up her shopping, I watched these busy people. I looked at their clothing, and their external features. I watched how they walked, how they priced each article of food to make the large amount of things they wanted fit into their shrinking budget.

 Suddenly a light bulb went off in my head, not a dim one, but a bright white light.

             

 God spoke to me right then and there

             

 Guess what He told me;

He told me to look deeper than just the outside. He told me to look at their heart not their external features. I saw these people with hearts as black as coal. Just like mine was until Jesus Christ changed it and made it sparkle like snow.

He showed me that these people, who didn’t have Jesus, were going to go to Hell, unless someone told them about the love of Jesus.

As Christians that is our call.

Matthew 28:19 says “Go therefore and make disciple of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

This time when I looked around I saw people who needed Jesus desperately just like I still do.

My eyes didn’t change, but my view and the way I looked at the world did.

My question for you is, how do you see people? When you look at someone ask yourself “This person could be destined to hell and I could, through the power of the Holy Spirit, stop this, but will I make the move to do it?”

Brandon Heath- Give Me Your Eyes

Why Some College Age Kids Leave Chruch

Someone in my church recently asked me if I could write on this huge topic that is greatly debated in Christian circles.   

Wait for it…..

Why Some College Age Kids Leave the Church (Notice I underlined the ‘some’ because thankfully there are still many young adults that attend church!)

I have to be honest with y’all I have no idea about this topic at all!! I’m going solely off of what I feel in my heart, and the responses I got when I posed this question on Facebook.  I’m not even in the college age group yet! I have grown up in church my whole life and the thought of leaving hasn’t even crossed my mind yet! So I have no personal experience and know scholarly knowledge about this!

Now that I have shown how non-creditable I am, I will proceed to share with you mine and other people’s (who, I might add, are all people currently attending church- super creditable I know!) opinions on this topic.

#1 Kids are too “busy” to go to church

I’m still in High School and I’m even busy, I can’t imagine how someone can possibly juggle school, work, and relationships! That sounds way complicated! No wonder they are too busy for church! Church is clearly not a big deal to some kids for them to drop their attendance to church.

#2 The Desire for Complete Independence

Um, I’m pretty sure when you are 18yrs old you are pretty sick of your parent nagging you and telling you to do stuff. I even get tired of it sometimes!!

#3 there isn’t any kind of group or study for that age group

I know how helpful my youth group is in my walk with the Lord so I’m sure it’s really hard if there isn’t always that kind of option for a college age person.

#4 The Hypocrisy in the Church is Unbearable

This would really turn me off too. There is a lot of hypocrisy in the church and many college age kids see that and turn away because they see that the church isn’t perfect and they don’t want to be associated with it! I guess that is the church’s problem, we don’t have these kids trust.

#5. I’m probably going to get some heat for this one, but I think it is necessary to say. If a person is truly a 

Christian they will not be turned off by their parents when they tell them to go to church. In fact, parents won’t even have to push their kids to go because their child will want to go on their own. So when a young person doesn’t want to go to church at all maybe there is no heart change towards Christ. Obviously I’m not saying that when a young person doesn’t go to church he/she is not saved because I am in no place to judge that person’s heart. That is between them and God. But since I am writing on this topic I would say that is a pretty big indicator on why someone doesn’t want to go to church.  

Those are just a couple reasons that myself and some other people I know came up with! Obviously, seeing how I am clearly not an expert I wouldn’t go using this as a source for a paper! Okay I’m done! Until next time dear friends!
~Caitlin