26 Jul The Shepherd’s Staff – August 2024

Greetings Mt. Pleasant Church from your Elder team. Sticking with last month’s theme, summertime is all about the young people of MTP. However, I believe our primary goal should be to maintain our focus on Jesus and not just on the fun things. All throughout scripture, we are reminded the importance of leading children to Christ. In Matthew, Jesus himself tells us, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” (Matthew 19:14) In Deuteronomy, Moses reminds us to “Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.” (Deuteronomy 11:19) when he’s speaking to the Israelites about the blessings of being obedient to God’s word. And in the book of Proverbs, it tells us that “The godly walk with integrity; blessed are their children who follow them.” (‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭20‬:‭7‬) In fact, the entire book of Proverbs can be viewed as an instruction manual for young people to avoid stumbling blocks in their faith walk. These scriptures, along with countless others in the Bible should serve as a reminder of our obligation as both parents and believers to teach our children about Jesus. As I’ve heard it said before, if we aren’t teaching our children, someone else is! How tremendous of an opportunity and a blessing it is to be part of a church body that makes this a priority when oftentimes it’s someone else’s child that we’re teaching. Psalms 78:5-7 tells us that instructing our children is a generational matter and that our actions and teachings will have an impact on our children’s children. My prayer is that we don’t become shortsighted and only live in the moment. Instead, allow us have a vision for generations to come and that the way we interact with our youth today will truly make a difference in their future so that they may pass it on for others to learn from them. Having a fun filled summer is what we all strive for but as a church, if we’re leaving Jesus out of it then we have failed at being the disciples we are called to be.

“Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God.”

1 Peter‬ ‭5‬:‭2‬ ‭NLT‬‬

• Kelley Cameron
• Timmy Hege
• Kevin Logan
• Mark Long
• Tommy McDevitt
• Jay Payne
• Alex Sprinkle
• Jon Sloan
• Greg York