where should we stand

Jonathan from LAPCOC here. Although being in the army has segregated me somewhat from the happenings of the youth throughout Malaysia and Singapore, Joan has been updating me consistently on things that have been happening in the recent past. Having also been able to update myself somewhat through the blogs of various youth, I hope to give some exhortation to our youth in general.

As youth of this generation, we are constantly subjected to many different types of temptation, some of which are almost impossible to detect. We constantly fall prey to the various new weapons the devil has in his arsenal. To top this all off, there are minor disagreements within ourselves just to make life a little more "interesting". As a young adult myself, I have seen my fare share of arguments, among youth as well as adults. Some end in a peaceable resolution, some end in one side leaving the church. I want to focus mainly on the disagreements between youth and adults. I hope the people who read this take this in the right light. and with the proper mindset.

More often than not, youth and adults have disagreements of over a few matters: dressing in church, language in and out of church (which is difficult to keep tabs on), and social etiquette of the youth in BGRs with other youth of the same faith. I have probably left out some other things but the above are the things that surface most of the time in my conversations with my dad when we try to bridge the gap between the church leaders and the youth.

So to put in some standards that can help us decide if we are in the right or whether the adults are giving sound advice, here are a few verses that will help.

Christians are to be concerned with transforming, not conforming (Rom 12:2). Is the bandwagon we are jumping on morally correct?. A danger to youth that are weaker in the faith? A danger to ourselves even though we might fail to see it now?

We often want adults to be more modern in their thoughts, to not have old-fashioned thinking we say. Don't be so conservative can? We ask.

My denominational friends always say, we need a new gospel of approach to worship for this new generation. We may not agree to that, but now we embrace new ways of life, new styles of dressing, new lingos when talking to friends such that we are often more influenced than we are willing to admit. GOD DOES NOT CHANGE (Mal 3:6), CHRIST DOES NOT CHANGE (Heb 13:8) and most importantly the BIBLE DOES NOT CHANGE (Gal 1:6-9).

We as the youth of today MUST keep ourselves unspotted from the world (Jam 1:27)
Purity in lifestyle is the key to differentiating ourselves from the youth who are not of the church. We must retrace the line that differentiates the church from the world, a line that worldliness has blurred.

Dancing - We have dancing in proms. From the words lasciviousness and revelllings, we can tell that the bible does not allow these things (Gal 5:19-23).

Immodesty - Although from 1 Tim 2:9-10 we only see reference to women, both guys and girls should be dressed modestly at ALL TIMES. There has been debate often on the dress code of the youth during service. I don't know of a verse that says we must wear shirts and ties to every service. I for one do not feel that we need to go to that extent of formality. HOWEVER, I believe in respecting the decisions of the leaders of my church, any church for that matter. If they decide that it is necessary and keep it as a matter of opinion, I will listen to them.

Impure speech - This is usually the one that kills us all. In one period of our life or another, we would have been influenced to speak in sentences that contain various vulgarities. I for one am guilty of it and give no excuse for my behaviour. It is important to understand the importance of purity in speech especially when we're with our friends who are not of the church. No corrupt communication is to proceed out of our mouths (Eph 4:29).

These are the few things we often contest with our leaders. I understand that we as youth are often open to new experiences and like to try things even if they are often dangerous to our spiritual health. More often than not, it makes it so much more exciting when we have the adults trying so hard to stop us... haha. Just think about where our church will be 100 years from now if we keep giving in to new ideas set before us by the world. Just one a year and we would have deviated from the word so much, we would be no different from any of the denominations. Let us work together to keep our youth pure at heart, mind and spirit. We are after all, the leaders of tomorrow.