"Watch your life and doctrine closely..."

Those were Paul's wise words to Timothy, the young pastor who maybe felt a little bit overwhelmed by the task ahead of him.

Today we began a class for the youth group students to teach them how to effectively share God's truth with those around them. I've been hearing more and more from them that their friends recognize they know their Bible and are asking to teach them... my students just aren't confident enough to teach. So based off of that knowledge as well as recognizing just how many awful teachers there are out there that people are flocking to, God opened the doors for us to begin this class. It's basically a hybrid of Principles of Preaching and Inductive Bible Study. Throughout the next two weeks, the students will be tearing apart passages and then explaining them and how to apply it to the lives of those who listen.

Today's introduction included going through Matthew 23 and Jesus' rebuke of the Pharisee's hypocrisy and how they don't practice what they preach. The challenge was to be sure not to fall into that trap and to recognize what James says that teachers will be judged more harshly. The students seemed to enjoy the different activities today and I'm really just figuring things out as we go, but I'm excited to see what these students will do with having a little more ammunition in their arsenal to "go into all the world and make DISCIPLES".