How do you get a generation that is extremely biblically illiterate to become lovers of God's word? That's a question we've been asking for a few years. More and more often we have students who grew up in the church be unable to identify who Saul, David, or Solomon are. They don't know the stories of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. They don't know who Samson is or any of the judges. They have heard the names of some disciples but couldn't tell you that Paul wasn't one of them. Many of them have never read an entire book in the Bible. Here's how we try to address that issue!
Pizza Theology
For longer than I've worked for FOCUS, we've done Pizza Theology twice a year. We get to spend hours diving into a biblical topic. This semester, we invited Dr. Rikk Watts, a retired seminary professor, to teach our students about 1 and 2 Samuel. Dr. Watts has taught our communities multiple times over the past decade and regularly teaches our apprentices every year in their studies on the New Testament. His understanding of Scripture and love of Jesus has deeply impacted our staff and our ministry even if this generation of students don't know it. What they got was more than even we bargained for. He didn't just teach on Samuel, he challenged and opened our eyes to why God might choose stories and narratives to be the genre in which he would communicate to us in his book. As humans we are defined by our stories and when we read the Bible as it is and not as we want it to be, we might be able to define ourselves by God's story. It was an awesome experience that I know will bless our community for many years to come.Scripture Smackdown
To capitalize on that momentum, we implemented a competition for our students that we have named Scripture Smackdown. A battle between the sexes on reading the Bible. They are awarded points for reading entire books of the Bible (this is not a memorization verse competition, but a steeped in the Word competition). We incentivize consulting other resources and reading it aloud with others to heat up the value of hearing the Word as it was originally heard: out loud and in community. We know that this is only one step towards becoming like Jesus, that simply reading does not in itself create disciples, but our students have attacked the challenge with fervor. In one week they've read 138 books of the Bible already. And the only prize is a small engraved plaque on a trophy signifying who won this year. We're very happy with how much they're already getting each other in on it, and we hope God will produce a lot of fruit from this!Thank You!
This year has been an exciting year of innovation and change. The world has changed a lot and what has always worked for us has needed to adapt to the needs of a new generation. But it's only thanks to you guys that I get to be here and a part of it. The gospel message of God's love to the world has not changed, but the ears and the minds that hear it have. So, in a reflection of God's example, we step towards them rather than have them climb their way to us. Thank you for believing in the kingdom vision here, and I ask for continued prayer for the ways our community is growing, that it will take deep root in our students' lives and that they would follow Jesus for the rest of their lives.
