Discipling young hearts, souls, and minds

The tutoring program exists not only to help with homework, but also as a place where we can be intentional in discipling the young people that the Lord has entrusted to us at this time.
 
Each week the teens come along with their homework and we use the time helping them with investigations and exercises and whatever they may need to learn from. But before getting to any of that we start each session with a devotional time together. We’ve shared before about how we aim to vary across the weeks the different spiritual disciplines we use - sometimes with a focus on worship, sometimes on intercessory prayer for the requests they bring, sometimes on reading an extended part of the Word together, and sometimes on bringing a particular teaching.

The teachings that we bring are informed by prayer but also by inviting input from the young people themselves. During the first couple of tutoring sessions of the year we asked them to share with us areas they might like to hear more information on. Some of this is more “spiritual” - questions about praying better or how to read the Bible - part of it is more practical - questions about things like dating or drugs. Throughout the year we will aim to speak into each of these themes in one way or another. Sometimes this will be with us leading a discussion ourselves, sometimes it will involve inviting someone in who is a bit more informed.

This week we have been fortunate to have someone come and share during one of these teaching times - Hugo has been coming along to share with each of the groups about his experiences earlier in life with drugs and addiction, and then his testimony of how God saved him from that lifestyle. It has been interesting and encouraging to hear as he has shared about the decisions he made as a teenager - around the age that many of these young people are - and the effects that had, but then how God saved him and has used him since.

Please pray for our young people, many of whom are living in places where these kinds of temptations are likely to be realities - that they would grasp not only the reasons that drugs are bad and they shouldn’t use them, but also how much greater God is so that they wouldn’t be interested in anything else in the first place