Calling All with a Heart for Transforming Teens!
I have seldom used my website as a place to post “prayer requests.” Today, the Holy Spirit has laid something on my heart that I feel compelled to share with you, and to ask for your prayer support. If you have a heart for teens – for seeing the adolescents of our day experience hope and healing and purpose and wholeness and joy and abundant living – then I am calling on you to join me in prayer. For some, this may mean pausing momentarily as you read this post to offer a brief, one-time prayer. Great! For others, you may pray about this periodically throughout the rest of today and the weekend. Thank you! And for still others, you may be willing to write this down and commit to ongoing prayer as a matter of priority. Bless you, sister or brother! And here is the matter of prayer I bring before you today:
I believe God is calling me to begin a monthly round-table gathering of Christ-followers with hearts for transforming teens.
While physically, it will be limited to those within reasonable driving distance, today’s technology can be a powerful force for the Kingdom. As I work on setting up the logistics for our gathering in Baton Rouge, I will also be working on the technological social-networking logistics that will facilitate you and those you know with a similar passion joining in on our ongoing conversation. I see our conversation including counselors, pastors, coaches, volunteer youth workers, teachers, youth leaders themselves, pediatricians, camp staff, and more. This call to transformational conversation is for all Christ-followers with a heart for youth, and I pray will not be limited by those particulars that the Enemy so skillfully uses to divide us – such as denominational barriers, racial discomfort and mistrust, gender lines, age, etc.
While the nature of the format and conversation will undoubtedly evolve with time as the Spirit leads us to grow together, I do have a vision for the important elements: We will pray. We will share our experiences of both victory and heartache regarding the teens within our spheres of contact. We will share our God-provided gifts, strengths, and resources with one another. We will seek the will of the Father, the way of the Son, and the wind of the Spirit. We will respond in obedience to God’s call for us to live incarnationally among the adolescents of our world. We will use our monthly conversation as fuel and focus for our daily mission to touch the lives of teens with God’s transforming love.
If this touches your heart-strings, and you live in the Baton Rouge area, please don’t wait to hear from me personally – contact me right away. I will be personally reaching out to individuals and organizations throughout our community as the Spirit leads me, but it will take time. If your heart is touched by this call, and you live out of driving range to join us in a chair, please don’t wait to hear from me personally – contact me right away. As I said, I will be working on developing the best social networking method to actively include you in the conversation, whether it is through this website or Facebook or something else.
Above all, please pray about this call to conversation for the transformation of teens. It is a call to faith. It is a call to hope. It is a call to love. It is a call to living incarnationally among adolescents. It is a call to action. Thanks for being a part of this mission. If you have even one eye or ear open these days, you know how desperate is the need.
p.s. – We now have a Facebook group.
p.p.s. – We also now have a permanent HDTV page here on my website.
3 Comments
Karin · July 26, 2009 at 10:31 pm
As I observe my oldest two grandchildren turn teens this year, I am much more aware of the dire need for this kind of resource, ministry and prayer. One of the teens is a very responsible young man and obedient to follow his parent’s leading. The oldest granddaughter baffles me AND her parents. She loves being ‘silly, goofy, and totally immature all the time. I, her grandmother, am the one who needs advice on how to love her without being judgmental about some of her silliness, i.e. she changes her name weekly on facebook! (I’m surprised they let her!) She is a very private girl and has never been an affectionate child to anyone – taking after both her grandfathers. She has a very keen mind and a high IQ. I trust that she will grow out of this – not the IQ, the silliness, lol. I would love if you could direct me to some reliable resources for myself. My thoughts and prayers will surround this ministry effort whenever the Lord brings it to mind!
Roger Butner · July 27, 2009 at 10:09 am
Karin, thanks so much for your support of our ministry to teens! One excellent source of insight and guidance is http://www.cpyu.org (Center for Parent-Youth Understanding). It sounds like your granddaughter may be using her silliness, etc. as a means of facilitating her leaning toward privacy and hiding. I would suggest “reframing” her goofy acts of immaturity as signs and symptoms of fear and insecurity. When these behaviors surface, see them as indications she needs you to very gently and safely move closer to listen to her heart behind the silly smokescreen. If I think of other resources, I will gladly send them your way.
Roger Butner · July 27, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Check out my HDTV page to stay updated with the development of “Highly Developed Teen Vision.”