Fresh out of college, I worked as a youth pastor for two United Methodist churches in northwest Iowa. My roommate, Ray, was a funny little guy who worked as a youth pastor at a different church.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
To my shame I must admit that Ray was further along in his faith and more intentional about discipling the youth in his care.<\/p>\n\n\n
I realized this when he received a complaint from a parent – mom was upset that her high school aged son, under Ray’s guidance, was “taking his faith too seriously”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
At the time I thought it was an odd complaint.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Thirty years later, and now a parent of a teenager myself, I don’t find it odd really.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
More like “horrifying”.<\/p>\n\n\n
At dinner tonight, Sarah (newly 15!) told us something her mother and I were unaware of. Her friend Lily had given her a Scripture memory device as a birthday gift. It consists of 52 Scripture verses on magnetic cards and a display holder.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
A verse a week to learn by heart.<\/p>\n\n\n
A bit surprised, we challenged her. And Sarah rattled off the first two verses from memory.<\/p>\n\n\n
She says she now often rehearses the passages internally as she navigates the hectic hallways at school.<\/p>\n\n\n
Can you imagine feeling anything but thrilled and grateful to hear something like that from your teenage daughter?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I can’t.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
She is taking her faith seriously, thank the Lord!<\/p>\n\n\n
And thank the Lord for strong, godly friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fresh out of college, I worked as a youth pastor for two United Methodist churches in northwest Iowa. My roommate, Ray, was a funny little guy who worked as a youth pastor at a different church.\u00a0 To my shame I must admit that Ray was further along in his faith and more intentional about discipling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1735,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions\/1735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}