02/09
Your job is to speak out on the things that make for solid doctrine. Guide older men into lives of temperance, dignity, and wisdom, into healthy faith, love, and endurance. Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness. By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children, be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, be good wives. We don’t want anyone looking down on God’s Message because of their behavior. Also, guide the young men to live disciplined lives. But mostly, show them all this by doing it yourself, incorruptible in your teaching, your words solid and sane. Then anyone who is dead set against us, when he finds nothing weird or misguided, might eventually come around. Titus 2:1-8
There are a number of options available for those youth who are involved in simple (house) churches. Some of the options I have wrestled with over the past few years are listed below. I am only going to provide some of those I have considered. I will then give you the option that we are now making available to the youth involved in Oikos Ministries.
The first option is to just have an intergrated intergenerational time for all those involved in the house churches. This is often the picture that we are given of the early church. The second option is to start a youth house church that would be guided by more mature believers within the larger gathering (a cell model within the house church concept). Third option is to provide opportunities for our youth to be involved with other youth outside the church setting. This is a great way to build relationships that may help others discover Jesus. The fourth and not necessarily the final option is to work alongside another church (not necessarily a house church) to provide a larger community for our youth to be involved.
As Oikos Ministries is a mission of a more traditional church we have decided to provide the opportunity for our youth to be involved with other youth in a more traditional church setting. This may not work for everyone but as each of us struggles with the question each of us will need to come up with a solution. After much prayer and questioning I believe this is the answer for our youth and is honouring to God.
