Why pray for our youth?

As I am embarking on my pinterest career, I created a board about praying for youth--since that is one of my primary passions--and looked for pins to build it. Um, I didn't find much. Maybe I'm searching with the wrong keywords, but I don't see much about why it's so critical to pray for our teens.

For the past 10 years, I have led an intercessory prayer team for our youth ministry simply known as the "prayer moms." We are a group of ordinary women who have no special training in prayer, no special qualifications. We are just moms of teenagers who feel that God wants us to stand in the gap and pray for them. We meet weekly to do so together, but also pray individually every day for our youth pastor, youth leaders, and youth kids. How we specifically do that is subject matter for another blog, but the point is that we believe the young people of this generation need consistent intercessory prayer as they begin and grow in relationship with God prior to heading out into the world of college and beyond.

Here are the main reasons we do so:

1. Kids need truth. Ever since the Bible and prayer were removed from our public schools, secular humanism has crept in. Relative truth has replaced absolute truth and created an atmosphere of confusion for teens who need firm boundaries and parameters for decision-making. Kids need the absolute truth of the Bible to steer their lives.
2. Kids need salvation. Statistics show most Christians make their decisions for salvation before the age of 18. Kids need to have real encounters with Jesus while they are still in their formative years. 
3. Kids need sustainable faith. Not only do teens need to have real relationships with Christ, they need to be grounded in active faith. They need to know their Bibles for themselves, and pray for themselves, and apply godly counsel to their own circumstances. 
4. Kids need spiritual protection. The enemy is real and he never takes a day off. His goal is to steal, kill and destroy--and at all costs prevent our kids from walking out into the world saved, walking in sustainable faith, and knowing absolute truth. He plays dirty and hits below the belt. They need intercessors to step out onto the spiritual battlefield and ask God to help them. 

Encouraging moms to pray for the youth of their churches--or neighborhoods--or whatever--is my passion, because I believe it makes a difference. We have seen many answered prayers during the past 10 years as we have consistently and diligently interceded for the youth of our church. If you want to know more about this, email me at momspray4youth@yahoo.com. 

BOOK REVIEW: Evergreen

Are you an empty nester? If so, you may relate to the struggle John and Ingrid Christiansen experience during their first Christmas alone in Susan May Warren's Evergreen.

As Ingrid wrestles with her conflicting feelings--sadness at her empty house and gratitude for her children's independent lives--John looks forward to a trip away. When that is thwarted, and they are thrown into the role of temporary parents to Ingrid's nephew, Ingrid's long-simmering bitterness over an issue John didn't even know bothered her is stirred to a flame. Both struggle to reconnect with the love they used to feel for each other, but the Christiansen home is unusually frosty this Christmas.

Told in Warren's characteristic warm style, this novella is yet another reason to love the Christiansen family. As Warren's series on this family continues to expand, readers will find Evergreen a delightful interlude between  longer installments in the family's lives.

For more information on Warren and the Christiansen family series, go here.

I received this book for free from Tyndale Publishers in exchange for my review.

BOOK REVIEW: A Short Walk to the Edge of Life

Talk about a take-your-breath-away adventure! Scott Hubbartt, in his book A Short Walk to the Edge of Life, takes the reader on a journey that changed his life--and his perspective of it--forever. Similar to an episode of "I Shouldn't Be Alive," Scott embarked on what he confidently thought would be an 8-10 hour hike in a Peruvian canyon to explore his wife's family history. A decorated Air Force veteran who had completed Survival, Evasion, Rescue and Escape training, he assumed he could handle the elements. He couldn't.

This book strikes right to the heart of what we all must admit before God: we're helpless without Him. Scott found, as he wandered for four days without food or water, that God will miraculously provide when we call to Him in admittance of our utter dependency upon Him.

Need some reminding as to Who is sovereign over your life? Take this journey with Scott and see how it changed his relationship with God..it just might change yours, too.

Read the first chapter here, and find out more about Scott Hubbartt here.

I received this book for free from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers in exchange for this review.