Reaching Youth Today: Clarity for an Age of Confusion
Feb. 4, 2025
Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell
Guest: Tom Powidski
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 2/4/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well, welcome again to another Stand in the Gap Today I am your host, Jamie Mitchell, director of church culture at the American Pastors Network. I hear this often from older saints. Today’s young people are different, and to that I say, well, absolutely. The fact is all teenagers at any time have always been different. We used to call it a generation gap, but today it seems more like a chasm between generations. Today there is 25.8 million young people from the ages of 12 to 17, and it’s fair to say that they are facing issues today like no other generation. Check out these statistics. 51% of them will live in single parent homes. 5.4% of the girls between 15 and 19 will have had an abortion. Of 200 people who die daily of fentanyl, 60% are teenagers. Alcohol use among eighth graders, 13%, 12th graders, 41% on an average 15% will use cannabis and that number is stable and not increasing.
20% admit to a serious bouts of depression, 13% experience some kind of suicidal thoughts, not to mention having to grapple with transgender indoctrination. Racial tensions in schools on the rise, antisemitism and looming crisis around the globe create all kinds of instability. On top of that, there seems to be an ineffectiveness in regard to ministries connecting and impacting this generation. The percentage of Gen Z’s, that’s people born between 1997 and 2012 who attend religious services, only 11% of Gen Z’s attend a religious service once a week. 30% do it once a month, 28% do it at least once a month as well. And of these factors, they are less likely to attend a religious service than any previous generation, and they’re more likely to identify as atheist and agnostic. As a matter of fact, I just heard that this morning on a television program. I can keep going… with all of that said, we cannot throw in the towel and not attempt to understand, reach and influence young people for Christ.
We need to understand that one of the core issues facing our young people today is that they’re confused. They have a tough time knowing truth and pursuing truth and everything around them is feeding this state of confusion More than ever, they need clarity. And today we want to discuss today’s youth and some of the strategies for impacting them. The title of our program, reaching Youth Today, clarity for an age of confusion, and to help me as a return guest Pastor Tom Powidski from Center Point Church in Naples, Florida. Tom, well, he’s a strange species and I’ve known him since college day so I can get away saying that he’s in his sixties and still a youth pastor. He’s been working with students for about 40 years. Most amazing fact is that he now has his grandkids in his youth ministry. That alone makes him an authority on the subject. All kidding aside, Tom, welcome back to Stand in the Gap.
Tom Powidski:
Jamie, thank you so much. It’s nice to be here. Yeah, we do go way back all the way back to Philadelphia College of the Bible, which is now Cairn University and can I say go Eagles? I’m allowed do that.
Jamie Mitchell:
Yeah, but you know what? We won’t start that we have enough confusion to talk about today then whether you’re an Eagles fan or a Chief’s fan. But Tom, you heard my opening and some of the facts that you have to deal with as a youth pastor, I believe that you would agree today students are confused and living confusing times from the years of working and understanding these different generations. What do you see in regard to this confusion? Why is it so prevalent and is there hope to de-confuse this generation?
Tom Powidski:
Yes, Jamie, the last four years in America and most people can identify with this is a time that just created all kinds of confusion, anger, division, and strife in our country. The last time I was on your show we talked about postmodernism, which is nothing more than the basis of all sin. The idea of postmodernism is that there it’s a belief that there is no God. Therefore everyone needs to come up with their own view. And they were pushing that for several generations and we were feeling the effects of that. Something strange happened in the last four years in our country, and I really believe around the world, there was a huge power grab and people took that from, you can believe what you want, but those who wielded enough power then kind of put it on everyone believe what we are telling you. Believe our science, believe this, believe that.
And that has created a real confusion. We were told, Hey, you can believe what you want, whatever you want to believe. And now we have a group of people just forcing it on them, canceling people, shaming people into believing that. And it left our young people divided by the shaming. It kind of forced them into conformity. I witnessed many young Christians confused and afraid to take any kind of moral stance. Many Christians and Christian families have been hijacked into accepting transgenderism, homosexuality, racist views, disguised as DEI and tolerance, which has kind of pushed a new morality on our country. And so I’m going to kind of focus a little bit on just the church, how we’ve been affected by this. And when Christians were confronted with clear scriptural passages on these subjects, they would come. And I’ve heard people say, I don’t think Jesus would’ve said that, which is really nothing new than the lie when Satan tempted Adam and Eve and said, did God really say?
So when we talk about hope, I kind of look at this situation. About seven years ago, my youth group was getting beat up by the postmodernism and we were sending kids off to college and we were losing a higher percentage of kids than I ever lost before. And we went through a fallout in our youth group. I lost two thirds of my youth group over a lot of these issues. We had families taking stands and convincing other kids of this stuff and we were just baffled. And I remember saying to my leaders one time, if a new youth pastor were to come in here, I was questioning myself. I was questioning like, is it my fault? Should I leave? But I looked at our youth group and I said, yeah, if a new youth pastor walked into this group, then they would be thrilled with hope because of the resources we have as a church, the young people that are here that are solid in their faith, the leadership team we have.
And then if we look at that now, talk about America as a whole. We have a lot to be excited about. The resources the church has are amazing. The leadership around the country is fantastic. We have a lot of great people in this country. And I keep asking the question like why are we walking around with our heads down if we compare that to the disciples who started with nothing and they turned the world around? So Jamie, I look at this as a lot of hope. I look at this as nothing new under the sun. It’s just, it’s a different way, a different technique of Satan, but it’s the same old, same old attacking us.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well Tom, we’re going to dig in now for the rest of this program and we’re going to try to give people hope and maybe some specific things that they can do with their own students as a pastor in their church. If they work with young people, they teach them. And when we return, Tom and I are going to try to attack this confusion by bringing clarity from a single passage of scripture and even an outline of some things that we can do. We’re trying to bring clarity to confusion in young people’s lives here on Stand in the Gap. Well welcome back to today. Our focus is young people and this generation that we are trying to minister to. Now, when we say this generation, we’re really speaking about two or three different generations that make up young people today. Many of them you’ve heard these terms.
Let me give them really quickly, you’ve all heard about the millennials. This is the generation, they’re now in their early thirties. The next generation is Gen Z. They were born between 1997 and 2012. They are 12 to 27 years old. They make up the share of young people today, but then coming up behind them is the alphas. These were born in 2013 to today. Each of these generations have been shaped by politics, world events, technology, invention, media influencers. They all are slightly different. They all show different profiles. But with the Zs or the Zoomers and the Alphas, we find this great cloud of confusion. Tom Powidski is our guest, a veteran of student ministry. Tom, when there is confusion, there seems to be fragmentation, disunity, disjointedness throughout life. If that’s the case, then that is what you are seeing with our young people. You’ve shared with me some ways that you are addressing this, especially as a youth pastor. How would you approach this and what kind of insight do you have for our listeners today?
Tom Powidski:
Jamie, when you first approached me with this a few months ago, I was thinking, and it was so open-ended as to all the problems that are going on. And I happened to be in a study with my students about oneness with God and oneness with others. And my study started in John 17 and then we quickly flipped the Philippians two as this answer to what questions came out of John 17. And in John 17, Jesus prays for those who come after disciples. That’s kind of the headache of starting around verse verse 21. And in there he gives what is my outline to everything I teach. Everything to me starts with this passage. This is the purpose and the meaning of everything. And so out of that flows everything I teach. And so in John 17, just real quickly, Jesus prays that all of them may be one father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
And he continues in verse 22, he says that they may be one as we are one I in them, you and me so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. And so looking at that, this idea that God’s whole purpose is to bring us into this oneness relationship with him. And so then the question I had was like, well, what should this oneness with God and oneness with others look like? And as I was going through Philippians two where Paul kind of answers that question, I saw in there the answer to the confusion. And anytime we have confusion, these are some of the issues I believe are going on. And in Philippians two, one and two, kind of the basis of this teaching I’ve been doing, Paul starts off, he says, therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, any common sharing in the spirit, any tenderness and compassion, and he uses this if clause like saying he’s going to say after that, then make my joy complete.
If you have these things make my joy complete. I think we learned way back in Bible college, you and I, that when every time you see the word, if they translators could have translated it since I almost think he’s assuming we have these things. If I understand what Jesus Christ did for me, I’m going to be encouraged by that unity with Christ. I’m going to be comforted by the love of what he did on the cross from me. I’m going to have this common sharing in the spirit and understand this tender and compassion. And then he says four things. Here he goes, that make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love being one in spirit and one of mind or other translations should say, put one in purpose. And so I saw these four things being like-minded with God, having the same love being one in spirit and one in purpose as being the keys to what God wants to do in this relationship I have with him.
And that gives me clarity that keeps me from being confused. And I’m going to walk through each of those four things and show how that gives you clarity. So I believe the opposite of these four things creates the confusion of what’s going on in our churches and our students and what the world is facing in confusion. So let’s look at the first one, one in mind. And so anything opposed to the word of God is a lie. And from the pit of hell, confusion comes into the church When we accept lies that contradict the word of God and why is it Every liberal denomination we see ends up looking exactly like the world’s mold and does everything the world does and they accept everything the world accepts. They do everything the world does us. And it becomes, you see that the postmodernism soak into them because they don’t accept the word of God as the word of God.
And then it’s like you believe anything you want again, we’re right back to do what you want. I mean, Alistair Crowley coined the phrase, do what thou will. It’s the basis of satanism. Anton Lafa later on in the 1960s wrote the Satanic Bible and took much of Alistair Crowley’s writings from the early 19 hundreds and created the Satanic Bible. But his motto of life was Do what thou will do what you want. And that’s the basis of postmodernism. That’s the basis of confusion because doing whatever they want. And then we had this big power grab four years ago and we saw how confused that made everyone. And the church needs the hold to the word of God. I mean every time we get off of that, Jamie, every institution that started in the right place, that compromise in any area creates the confusion and we end up looking exactly as the world looks.
And the second point there is having the same love. I mean the mark of Christians is they’re verse, they will know we are Christians by our love. And apart from Christ or apart from the deep abiding relationship with Christ, it will always result in selfishness. And what’s really cool in that passage in Philippians, it talks about selfishness, about this love. In the next two verses, verses three and four, it says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Jamie, before I was a Christian that would define my life. I don’t think I did anything that was not out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. And even as a Christian, that’s one of my greatest struggles of just taming that beast. And we in the church have learned to Christianize selfishness. We make excuses for it. Well, it’s for my family and for this and for that.
And that creates confusion in our methods. The Bible says you cannot serve two masters, but then it continues. It says rather in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest but each of you to the interest of others. And so God wants us to be totally focused on other people. And when we allow selfishness to come in, that is not love. And so we violate this and when confusion sets in, so our students are dealing with this, our parents and our churches are dealing with. If we want to get back to getting a great away from this confusion, we have to become laser focused on the things that God tells us to do. So to become one with God, I’m one in mind. God says, second Corinthians one, Corinthians chapter two, he says, you have the mind of Christ available to us.
We can bind together through the word of God. The word of God is the shares, the mind of God. We got to compare everything we believe to scripture. And then he’s taken a step further and saying, get out of this selfishness. You need to put others before you. And so these are some of the struggles we’re seeing in the church and the battle that’s going on, the confusion we’re seeing, I believe is we’re getting off of the focus that God has initially set us towards. And so he’s moving us towards these things and we keep pulling away from them and letting other things settle in. So that’s the battle I see, Jamie, that’s what I see’s going on in our country. But in the church we have to really,
Jamie Mitchell:
Tom, can I ask you a question, Tommy? Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. I’ve been trying to get in here to ask you a question because I don’t want to run too far on this. I want to go back to the mind of Christ and we now have a minute left in this segment. When you’re talking about the mind of Christ, I assume your meaning that we have got to get God’s word into the mind of young people. And if we can’t get the word of God into the mind of young people, they can’t have the same mind of Christ. Am I assuming that? Is that what you’re saying? And we have now less than minute.
Tom Powidski:
Yeah, if we don’t put the mind of God into our students, but Satan is going to fill them with thoughts from the world. And the question is, who are you listening to? Who are you hearing and what are you adopting as your belief systems?
Jamie Mitchell:
And here’s the problem, Tom, as I see it as I talk to a lot of pastors and I visit a lot of churches. Our young people today in school are learning to do computer code. Yet when they’re in church, we don’t challenge them to do things like inductive Bible study or read the Bible for themselves or challenge them to really think biblically about life, about decisions they make and running their mind through a biblical worldview. And so because that’s not happening from the church side of things and from parents and all of that, kids are not developing a one mindedness with God. And then when their barrage by what the world is bringing them, then they have this confusion. Now when we come back, I want you to hold on friends, we’re going to come back and Tom’s going to elaborate more on this second Philippians and these four keys to fighting the confusion with clarity and oneness.
We’re trying to bring unity to the hearts and minds of young people in a world that is bringing about nothing but confusion and disjointed. This join with us back in a few moments here at Stan in the gap we’re looking at today’s use and the struggles they face, the confusion, this cloud of confusion that’s over them. Pastor Tom Powidski is our guest and we’ve been getting into applying Philippians two and the passage regarding Christ and how we’re to apply his life to our lives and specifically to the lives of young people. And that passage describes that we’re to have the same mind, the same attitude which is selflessness, the same spirit and the same purpose as Christ. And we began talking about this in regards to the same mind. And Tom, you started to talk about the issue of being selfless or to avoid selfishness. I mean I was a teenager, I’m an adult and I’m selfish, but I know when I was a teenager, that’s when my selfishness seed really began to grow. How do we help teenagers grapple with selfishness? And what practical ways are you trying to address that with the students that you have?
Tom Powidski:
Jamie? It’s something we have to keep in front of our students at all times. I myself was not raised in the church. I was Roman Catholic and I was missing the gospel. I was not understanding it. And one of my goals was to help our young people to understand the things of God. I didn’t understand them. They had me in the palm of their hands and they did nothing with me and shame on them. And I feel like it’s shame on the church if we don’t help our young people understand these issues, they need to know why the Bible is the word of God from every angle. Our kids explore stuff on the internet, they’re hearing the arguments against the word of God. We need to be armed, we need to be ready, we need to be prepared. And so if we don’t trust the word of God, we’re not going to trust when God tells us to not be selfish because that’s a natural thing. As you said, there’s probably no time in our lives where selfishness just overtook us more than we were young people and especially in middle school and high school. And so they needed a solid reason as to why not to fall into that
Jamie Mitchell:
Is the reversal Tom. And I’m thinking of youth pastors or pastors or even parents today. It’s so important at this age to get kids then to serve and to give themselves away if they’re going to reverse this potential of having a selfish heart. Isn’t that the case?
Tom Powidski:
We do a lot of type service things and that’s helpful, but it has to flow out of your belief system. One of the things that we’ve had to do with our youth is we change what we were doing in the summer. We were doing a lot of these service type projects and we felt like we had to get our kids better teaching. So our students are involved in student Leadership university, we’re committed to that process. We’re trying to get all of our students to go to one of the Summit Ministries that’s a two week program in Colorado, one’s in Tennessee and our churches. And I appreciate our leadership has gotten behind that because they’re very expensive programs and they’re paying half of some of them, sometimes more than that students, they don’t have enough money. And the teaching our kids are getting and some of those programs, Jamie is really helping them to grapple with the deep things of Christ, the worldview stuff. Because I had kids say, well Tom, that’s what you believe. So I needed to get my kids exposed to things outside of our little bubble here and to see that, hey, these are things that on a national level students are dealing with and wrestling with. So that’s been a big help for us, not just doing those service projects, but then understanding why that’s important and getting the method behind it.
Jamie Mitchell:
Tom, as I’ve been thinking, as you’ve been talking here, and I’ve been thinking about outcomes of our young people, if they do have the same mind of Christ and they begin to think with a biblical worldview and they begin to make good decisions, they’re going to experience the blessing of a good decision. And just like it says about Jesus, that the joy set before him, he endured the cross when they give of themselves and they let go of selfishness and they embrace selflessness, they’re going to experience a new kind of joy in their lives. Now let’s just keep moving here. We have a third quality of this Christ likeness, that teen need to overcome the confusion today. And in that text it says there that they are to have the same spirit. And I would assume, Tom, that what he’s talking about there is being controlled by the spirit or indwelled by the spirit or filled by the spirit or yielded by the spirit. Is that what Paul is giving us, that being like Christ is being controlled by the Spirit? And how do you help communicate that to students? What handles do you give them?
Tom Powidski:
Well, one of the things in this passage, this is probably the hardest one of the four to understand, and the other thing you have to understand is these four just kind of meshed together. They’re like cutting a cherry pie into four parts where the different parts kind of ooze into each other. So you have to keep all of them together as you’re going through this process. And in the Bible, in our English versions, we put the small S Spirit when they’re talking about everyone’s kind of in common. You’re at a football game and everyone has the same spirit. They’re rooting for the team, they want them to win. And then we put a capital S Spirit when we’re talk about the Holy Spirit. And this is another passage that’s confusing because I really kind of get the flavor of both those ideas here. So I think they could have put capital S spirit for the spirit of God because it’s going to take the spirit of God that unites us.
Now you see here, you have more of us gathering around this cause and in our country, our country’s just focused on causes and they pulled a lot of people in. I mean we went through the things where anti-police and black lives matter and the battle there of causes, and one of the things I say to people a lot is, hey, Jesus could have fought more causes. I mean he didn’t take care of what the Jews thought were their greatest problem, which was the Roman government. He could have healed more people, but he didn’t. He could have gone to more towns and preached in more places, but he didn’t. So he trusted the spirit of God. It’s Jesus who said this and it’s very interesting. Everything I do and say comes from the Father. So he’s laser focused, so he’s in tune with the spirit of God.
So the spirit of God has to lead where we put our efforts, where we put our causes. And so the unity comes in, we lean on the spirit and trust the Spirit and the Bible, the word of God helps us to understand what we’re hearing from the spirit. And that’s been a big controversy. Is the spirit telling you this or is it you? When I asked my wife out for the first time, I even told her, I said, I don’t know if this is my own sinful desires or if this is from the spirit of God.
If you don’t feel like this is you, feel the same way about me, then please say no. Then I’ll know it’s my spirit, not the spirit of God. So we got to learn how to test ourselves in the spirit of God. Almost every year I go through what’s called the seven woes where Jesus attacks the Pharisees. And I need to ask myself, Jamie, could he say any of these things about me right now? And so it’s a real challenge to be open to the spirit of God. So when you take the word of God, the spirit of God then internalizes it, personalizes it to us. And so we do need to learn a lot about being controlled by the spirit because we fake ourselves out in this area a lot. We’re not open enough to the spirit of God. So this is a real challenge for ministries to let our young people learn.
And one of the things that I started doing when I first became a Christian, and it was probably one of the best exercises I ever did. If I ever got an idea that I thought was wholesome, was pure, no selfish motive, then I’m going to take that as being from the spirit of God. I’m going to start acting on those things. And those things were like dealing with my sin, caring about people, things that were, I would never have thought that way before. I would never have had those thoughts. So it’s a challenge to teach our young people to start living more like this. Being open to the spirits. I realized this a non-Christian, I never had a thought that was unselfish. So when I started getting these unselfish thoughts or caring thoughts or serving type thoughts, you start acting on them and then the spirit of God just floods you with more of those thoughts. I believe. What’s interesting to, yeah,
Jamie Mitchell:
What’s interesting is that in the early church when one of the apostles would meet a disciple or somebody claiming to be a disciple, they used to say to them, it’s recorded in acts. Well have you received the Holy Spirit? And so this was a major question that was asked, and we may be just assuming, especially if kids growing up in the church, they hear about the Holy Spirit, they sit during sermons, but really sitting down with a kid and saying, Hey, let me explain to you how the Holy Spirit works in your life, what a prompting is, how to discern if this is like you just said, my feelings or some bad pepperoni pizza from the night before, or really this is God now nudging me. And it’s so essential, Tom, that we’re teaching our kids these things because this is going to help them navigate some of the confusion in their life.
And it’s so powerful that we can help them both have the mind of Christ, then the attitude of Christ, which was of selflessness, and now the spirit of God or the spirit of Christ, prompting them, moving them, navigating through these very difficult times. This is so good. If we can teach our young people to embrace these truths, it’ll transform their lives and most importantly, give them spiritual clarity. Now when we come back and we finish up this conversation, we’re going to look at the last spiritually unifying truth from Philippians two that students need and some final thoughts of how to encourage parents and pastors to help their kids. We’re trying to understand this confusing generation that’s out there and give them clarity here on Standing the Gap. Today we’ve been discussing how to help today’s teens find spiritual clarity in an age of confusion. We’ve been anchored in Philippians two and the four things that Paul tells a church that is in conflict and facing some confusion of itself. Tom Powidski, a four decade season youth pastor, has helped us understand how teaching and practically helping students engage in these truths. Tom, we’ve considered the same mind as Christ, having a selflessness as Christ being controlled by the spirit of Christ. And we get to this last one that you say kids need and that is the purpose of Christ. What do you mean by that? And what does it look like to have the same purpose of Christ in a student’s life?
Tom Powidski:
Jamie, before we get into that, you mentioned a statistic of the 200 people who died daily of fentanyl, 60% will be teens. And out of all the statistics you mentioned, that was the most daunting one for me because when I was growing up, the kids that I found that were searching through drugs and sex and things like this, were some of the kids searching for meaning, searching for purpose because they didn’t have purpose. Our world doesn’t provide you that. The idea of postmodernism is you have to find your own purpose. And there’s so many things you could get into, you kind of give up and kids default to these kinds of things like drugs and just sex and just having fun because there’s no meaning. There’s no purpose in their lives. And our church kids kind of get sucked into those same things. So what’s so crucial about this passage in Philippians chapter two is Paul gives a model and he gives us these four things, make my joy complete by having the same mind, having the same love, the same spirit, the same purpose.
And then the rest of the passage, he kind of unpacks it. He tells us how to do it, and we walk through Philippians verses three and four, do nothing out of selfish ambition or being conceived. And then he says, have this attitude in yourself which is also in Christ Jesus or the NIV says, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ. And what’s really cool, we have a savior who does it first and shows us how to do it. And in that passage in verse six and chapter two of Philippians says, who? Jesus, who being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God, something to be used to his own advantage, or rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness. This is God being disguised as one of, I don’t know how many billions of people who lived on this earth by the time Jesus is done here, but he just is one of billions of humans, disguises himself as a human and being found in the appearance of a man that says he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on the cross.
And so he’s given us this model that I am to be obedient also unto death. And so he was laser focused on his mission. I encourage people to read the gospels and say, look how focused Jesus is on this mission. Then throughout the scriptures, he’s inviting us to join him in what he’s doing in this world. He invites us to join him in this mission. And so we need to not make things about ourself that I need to join him in this mission. That’s how I can have the same love he has. I can only do it when I’m listening to his spirit. I can only do it when the word of God is my final authority. But fulfilling yourself in that mission is amazing. Jamie, when I was in high school, I was a three time all American in my sport. Second team, all American in my sophomore year, first team all American, my junior and senior year, I was invited to Olympic tryouts when I was 16 years old.
And one of the things I turned away from the sport, I walked away from it going into college. I could not wait to be a youth pastor. And one of the teachers, gym teachers at our high school said, one of my friends said, what a waste of good flesh, which is one of the best comments I ever heard. And see, the world doesn’t understand purpose, but when you understand the purpose that Christ has and you bind yourself to that purpose, you can’t help but the want to do what God wants to do. And that’s why we need to be so focused on these other areas. The word of God rules in my life. I want to love people as Jesus loved people. I need to be in tune with the spirit of Gods. I’m going through this process and then I align myself, I align my life. What am I doing to fulfill the purpose of God in this world? What is my role in that mission? And we’re to work as a body of Christ in that mission, but we have to keep going back to the basics to get that mission down.
Jamie Mitchell:
Tom, that is why it is interesting. We don’t want to ever say to parents or kids that being involved with hockey or being involved with the fine arts or being involved with all these other things is not important If you have some talent there, if you have some gifts, that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, you’re going to age out of playing hockey. You’re not going to be on a stage at a play or in a musical forever. And there has to be something that transcends life more than some of these things that we focus on. But I think, and maybe you can speak to this for a minute or so and then we’ll get to this final question. There is a confusion that kids get into because even parents and school teachers push our kids to do things that ultimately don’t fulfill the purpose that God has for them.
Tom Powidski:
And when we’re in those things, I mean, if you’re encouraging your kids to be involved in those things, keep talking about, well, how can you serve your team? How can you be a leader on your team? How do you bring Christ into this? I tried, I coached soccer for 19 years with my own kids, and I tried different things to get kids to stop, and each of them failed. But I kept trying, trying to find ways to invite people from my teens to what was happening at our church and things. And it’s awkward, but you can get so distracted by the things you make your purpose. And somehow as parents, we have to keep bringing Christ into that picture. How do we combine this? How do we take the things you’re good at, things you love and bring Christ into it?
Jamie Mitchell:
Yeah. Tom, let’s wrap this up. We have just a couple of minutes left here. You’re in your sixties. You’ve seen a lot of these different generations of youth over the years. I would conclude, as I think you would, that this is a very, very difficult time for young people, but can they be rescued? They be redeemed. And more importantly, can you give the parents and pastors that are listening one thing today that they can do to help turn the tide of confusion for our kids today?
Tom Powidski:
Well, one of the things I try to do with my own kids, and some of my kids struggled in their growth in Christ, but is to have open dialogue with them. As a parent, you have a captive audience every time you drive your child around somewhere. So look for ways to bring God into it. I mean, we watch movies together, and then I always try to equate something to God and my kids would go, oh, here you go again. But I think at the same time, they appreciate that in the long run, we just have to find ways to keep bringing Christ into our conversations, talking about our own devotional life towards Christ, talk about our own things. We need to humble ourselves with before God, our own sin areas, but we just have to be open about what’s going on, and it opens our kids up.
Jamie Mitchell:
You’ve given us a great model today. Do our kids have the mind of Christ? Do our kids have the attitude of Christ? Do our kids have the spirit of Christ and the purpose of Christ? And those things will guide them out of this confusion. Tom Powidski, thank you for your faithfulness, your wisdom. Friends, remember, Christianity is just one generation away from extinction. We never let that happen. We must recommit ourselves to the souls of the next generation. And to do that, as I say at the end of every program, we must live and lead with courage because the church in this world need courageous people. God bless you. Have a great day.
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