July 24, 2026, 3:00 PM
Greetings in Christ!
Greetings once again, and I hope and pray you've had a good week so far.
Right now, we do not have a lot of young people at First Christian Church.
It's been my prayer since becoming the Lead Pastor at FCC that we would begin to add more and more young people to the church family.
It's been a slow process, but we are, praise God, starting to see some little ones in our midst.
Next week, we are planning on doing a 3-night event at the church targeting young families with children. We are calling it a "family camp."
I encourage you to pray for this event. Please pray that it would bless and strengthen the young families we have at FCC. Pray also that we might meet a few new families in the process.
I've always known that passing our faith on to the next generation is very important.
Recently, however, this fact has become even more real for me.
Five months ago, I became a grandparent, and just one month ago, I witnessed the death of my father.
The realization of how quickly our life passes by and, thus, the preciousness of the time we do have, has given me a real sense of urgency concerning "passing the baton" of faith.
This "vision" actually began a few years ago when I kept seeing a man meeting with other men in the places that I often frequented, like McDonald's. I couldn't help but notice that he was talking with them about spiritual matters. While some people may call this being "nosy," I prefer to say that this is my "spiritual gift" of "listening to other people's conversations."
The man turned out to be John Withers. He has been a minister for several years and turned 83 years old earlier this year. John serves as one of my mentors, and he and I have been meeting together on Tuesdays from 9-10 am for the past two years.
I recently asked John how he received a calling from God to mentor other men. John said, "I was influenced in the mid 1990s by Promise Keepers to start intentionally mentoring other men. I think I started with the first ones about 30 years ago. I currently meet with between 20 and 25 men each week, depending on who’s available. I meet with 14 individually, and the other 11 are in three small groups. I became more intentional on my 62nd birthday when I believe God gave me my 30-year plan."
I love that John is not "resting on his laurels" or "taking it easy" in the later years of his life! In fact, these days, John is doing some of the most important and strategic ministry of his life!
Yes, each generation has a responsibility to tell the next one about the goodness of God. When we fail to do this, we set future generations up for failure. We not only tell them about God, but also warn them of the mess that we make of our lives when we turn away from God and His goodness.
Listen to what the Psalmist writes in Psalms 78:1, 3-7: [1] "My people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. [3] things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. [4] We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done. [5] He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children, [6] so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. [7] Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands."
In scripture, we read that an entire generation of God's people were unfaithful and were punished for it by not being able to enter the Promised Land.
Well, nearly the entire generation. TWO men remained FAITHFUL, TRUSTING God.
Numbers 14:30 records God's judgement: "Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun."
This coming Sunday (07.26.26), I will be continuing in our series of sermons called "Head for the Hills” as we will talk about one of the faithful ones (Caleb) and his claiming his inheritance in the Hills of Hebron!
I pray we will see you at FCC this coming Sunday. If not then, Lord willing, I'll see you again soon. May God bless!
In Him,
Greg Herriford
