Pastors, leaders, and overall churches (people) are led down a path of decisions of "how" to setup a context like a Sunday service, small group Bible study, kid's ministry, Sunday school, outreach ministries, and the path seems to never end (which is revealing in and of itself). The "how" mainly translates into setting the mood to keep the attention of people engaged or ensuring reverent order of tradition. Variables and conditions are looked through like that of curriculum or teaching content to location and even ambience to align and support the "how."
Give Up, Give In, or Gain Godliness
Have you ever felt like giving up or giving in?
Life brings pressures overwhelming and hard to endure. Successes, sufferings, or a mix of both squeeze us in directions like walking through the proverbial "valley of the shadow of death." Shadow darkness brings a sense of loneliness accompanied by despairing thoughts and emotions that can be physically exhausting. Pressures then reside outside and inside us creating an intense gravitational pull to pursue the quickest solution to escape.
But the pull seems inescapable, and we either want to give up or give in. Giving up becomes a way to quit and walk away from something. Giving in stays and goes with the flow. Neither work out in the end as helpful and interestingly the domino effect happens when those around us begin to give in or give up, leaving us in a perpetual cycle.
A Challenge to Younger People
If God does not inspire you, then someone or something else does. God exists or he does not. As he does exist, he created the world and life to inspire you to trust him. There is too much evidence and revelation for the existence of God in which outweighs the horrific evils and abuses in the world. And in history, an old, wise king that turned his back on God, wrote to the younger generation about his mistakes:
A Challenge to Older People
God calls you -- the older in any generation -- to be believers in him. Believers are those that fear or stand in awe of him as more impressive than success, suffering, tragedy, money, fame, relationships, or anything else this world values or devalues. God's word ties in the need for people growing older in age to also grow humbler in trust of him. By that, the older generation becomes people who transfer more than mere money, habits, etiquette, resources, jobs, talents, and so on. They transfer the object of their faith. They transfer to the young the challenge, call, and command to fear and follow God -- the creator, sustainer, and savior of life and the world.