Peter Witkowski Children's Ministry

Kids’ Ministry Needs Social Media?

Technolgy blogDo you speak social media? If you don’t know what the question means or answer it in the negative, your church may have a problem. And your kids’ ministry mostly likely has a problem.

At the end of 2015, only 17% of people between the ages of 18-24 and only 21% of people between the ages of 25-34 regularly read a newspaper. In fact, only 20% of all Americas use newspapers to access the news. Moreover, only 38% of people between the ages of 55-64 daily read a newspaper every day.

What do these stats mean? They are telling us that newspapers and magazines are no longer the driving force shaping the worldview of our congregations.

People are going digital. According to a pew research study, 62% of US adults access some news through social media. And 38% of Americans access news primarily through the web and social media. When it comes to millennial moms, (those between the ages of 18-34) 99% of them are on Facebook. Eighty-six percent use social media to influence others. And 87% percent of them turn to social media when looking for parenting advice and tips. In short, social media is increasingly the largest force shaping the American Culture. If our church wants to reach people, we must speak the language of social media. We must be willing to go where our moms are.

woman free smart phoneAnd we have the freedom to go digital. Smart phones are not evil. Facebook is not destroying America. Do people with sinful hearts misuse technology? Yes, and yes! But the technology is not the problem; the people are. We need to address the people instead of attacking the media platforms. We need to use social media to reach people misusing social media. If we draw a line in the sand over technology, we will undoubtedly cut ourselves off from the next generation.

Thankfully, we don’t have to do anything so drastic. Because social media is cheap and easy to access every church can have a platform. As the local church, we can fill Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter feeds with helpful resources. We can promote events through pictures, we can share helpful articles, and we can create our own resources by producing videos, blogs, and podcasts. The Bible is still powerful today, offering hope to all. We just have to be willing to go where the people are.

I still believe that the preached word is still the most effectively tool in the church’s arsenal (closely followed by discipleship). We still need to meet together to worship the one true God (Heb. 10:25). But we must understand that our church members will not wait till Sunday morning or Wednesday night to have their questions answered. They are going to pull out their smart phones and flip open their laptops. And when they do, will they find anything from their church? Are we ready to speak into their lives?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

5 Ways To Resolve Conflict

Conflict-BlogIt finds us. Whether we stay at home, go to school, or commute to the office, conflict will find us. Kids will disobey us, coworkers will disagree with us, and friends will say hurtful things to us. And what often starts as a bright day full of hope quickly becomes rocked by thundering rain clouds of frustration. Conflict has arrived.

Now not all conflict is bad.  Often competing ideas can be used by God to promote godly change, to increase productivity and to develop godly character. As we learn to submit to another in love, the church wins. As Jesus said in John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

But obviously many conflicts do not turn out this way. Instead of leading to unity, conflict often produces anger, bruised feelings, and broken relationships. Why does this happen? According to James 4 sinful conflict explodes in our lives because of what’s in our hearts. Notice what he says,

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

We fight, we get mad, and we quarrel with each other because we are not getting what we want. Think about some of these common responses to conflict: “I don’t care what he said, he has no right to talk to me that way; I deserve better; all I wanted was a little peace and quiet; who does she thinks she is; don’t they realize all my skills, abilities and years of service.” This is not to say that the other party is innocent. But the reason we get mad, the reason we respond to sin with more sin is that we love things more than God. We want respect, peace, ease, and love. When we don’t get them, we arm our passions and go out on the war path seeking to attack, humble, and destroy anyone who does not worship us like we worship us. Hence, we are involved in sinful conflict because our hearts are focused on things other than God.

So how do we resolve conflict and bring it to a conclusion?

1. Seek To Glorify God:

Conflict is not fun. But it is also not pointless. Conflict exists so that you and me can
become more like Christ. As we repent of sinful heart attitudes, practice forgiveness, and extend love, we will see our faith expand. Though trials are never enjoyable, they are not pointless. Conflict exists so that we will become perfect and complete. If we want to see our conflicts resolved and our relationships restored, we must seek to redeem the situation we find ourselves in. We must not fear conflict. We must see it as an opportunity for good and for kingdom expansion!

2. Repent:

We get mad not because of what someone else did or said. We get mad because we are peace maklerfinding satisfaction in something other than Christ. To disarm our hearts, we have to confess to God that we are prideful, selfish, and coveting. We have to set our minds on the things above. We must meditate on all that God has done for us through the cross. We must find our hope, joy, and validation in him. Before we can hope to solve human conflict, we must first get our hearts right with God.

3. Confess:

After we repent of our sins, we must seek out those whom we have offended and confess our sins to them. Even if the other person started the fight, even if they’ve done more wrong than us, we must go to them in love, confessing our sins. If we hope to win our brothers and sisters back, we must honestly tell them all our wrongs and ask them to forgive us. We must as Jesus says get the log out of our own eye (Matt 7:5). Many conflicts roll on year after year unresolved because no one is willing to confess their sins. We can’t make others change. But we can deal with our own sin. To begin the process of restoration, we must repent and confess our own sins to every person that we have wronged. As Proverbs 28:13 says,

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

4. Go In Love:

After we have confessed our sins and mistakes – then and only then- can we loving
express our concerns to others. Of course, we should only directly talk to those that have wronged us. Telling our friends what so and so did may validate our sinful heart attitudes, but those words will not lead the other person towards repentance. Rather, we go privately go to the person who has offended us, and tell them their sin (Matt 18). And we do not list every character flaw they have ever had. Instead, we tell them about specific sins, hoping that they will respond with repentance.

5. Forgive:

If someone has wronged us, we must be ready to forgive them. When a former enemy asks us to forgive them, we must say yes. We must remember all that God has done, forgiving others because God has forgiven us (Col. 3:13). Regardless of what someone did to us, we have done more to God and been forgiven. If we are God’s children, we can forgive others. This may not come easy. Our flesh will say, “No way.” But as we plead with God to help us, he will change our hearts. If we have been redeemed by God, we can love our enemies. Now forgiveness does not mean that consequences disappear. The child who ate a one-pound bag of Oreos by himself is still banded from the pantry. But his parents, no longer hold the crime against him. They no longer mention it or bring it up. They have forgiven him. As Ken Sande said,

Forgiveness is a radical decision not to hold an offense against the offender.

We must be ready to forgive.resovling conflict

Conflicts can get tricky in a hurry. But no conflict has to destroy. For Christians, there is always hope. For more info about how to deal with conflicts, I highly recommend that you checkout Resolving Every Day Conflict or The Peace Maker by Ken Sande.

Are you ready to biblically resolve your conflict?

 

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/28842017@N00/26326972123″>street portrait</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a&gt; <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a&gt;

 

Peter Witkowski Apologetics

5 Thoughts On Last Week

1. Racism is Real

I am not saying that you are racist. Nor am I saying that all of our crises are racially Five-thought-blogmotivated. Nor are all of country’s problems tied to racism. But racism is real. The recent controversies make this fact abundantly clear.  Our black brothers and sisters and neighbors feel that the system is stacked against them. Throughout the history of our country, they have been attacked and belittled because of the color of their skin. And those feelings have been touched off over the last year or so.

If we pretend otherwise, we are closing our eyes to needs of our neighbors. We must recognize the pain many in the black community feel. We must admit there is racism in our towns, neighborhoods, and churches. We must confront it when we see it. And we must repent of it when we practice it. We cannot meaningfully speak into our culture until we have removed the log out of our own eyes (Matt 7:5).

2. Sin in the Ultimate Problem

The U.S. is coming unglued because of sin. As I John 3:4 makes clear sin is lawlessness. When we sin and when we live for self and for our wants, disorder and chaos always follows. As James 3:16 says,

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

Innocent people have been murdered because people are controlled by sin. If we want peace, we must address the sin in our hearts and the sin in our culture.

3. Evil Has Consequences

The controversy of late have involved some very sinful men and women. Now, one person’s sin in no way justifies another person’s sinful actions. As I Thess. 5:15 clearly says, “See that no one pays back evil for evil.” But the scriptures also don’t excuse sinful choices (Gal. 6:7). If we are driven by hatred, we will can expect to be destroyed by evil. Proverbs 26:27 says,

Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone it will come back on him.

4. Only Jesus Saves

Because racism is ultimately a sin problem, there is only one solution. And it’s not a nationalized police force or body cameras. It’s the gospel. The gospel saves. Through the gospel men and women get the power to love their enemies and to bless those that curse them. Through the gospel men and women can stop viewing their race as superior and can begin treating other races with love. Only the gospel can save and bring peace. As Christians, we need to be quick to preach the gospel with our words and actions. We need to love those who are different from us by practically meeting their needs. And we need to tell them about Jesus. Only through the advancement of the kingdom of God can racism be ended.

5. Parents Have To Step Up

One thing I have noticed over the years is that kids are not inherently racist. If put together a whole a bunch of black, white, and Asian preschoolers into a room, you don’t get race riots.

To some degree kids have to be taught by adults to think that their race is superior. Admittedly, little kids are sinners and are ready to embrace sinful ideas. Parents can model the gospel and still have racist kids. But most kids adopt racist ideas because their parents practice them.

If we want gospel change to happen in our culture, we have to live it out in our families. We have to apply Colossians 4:11 to our homes:

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

We have to stop using racist language and criticizing minorities as if the color of one’s skin determines their actions.  We need to be open to having friends that look different from us. We need to encourage our kids to make godly friends, caring nothing about their friend’s skin color. We need to start modeling the gospel.  I.e, we as parents have to view all people as being created in God’s image.