Fellowship Around the Table
Great conversations about life, faith, and the Bible from Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma (www.fbctulsa.org).
Fellowship Around the Table
Ready to Launch w/ Rick Griffith
Discover the essential spiritual toolkit needed for young Christians as they make the pivotal leap into adulthood. Rick Griffith joins me to share his invaluable insights from our time teaching the Ready to Launch class at Fellowship Bible Church. Together, we unravel the complexities young believers face when leaving the nest and how they can safeguard their faith amidst new challenges. We touch upon the significance of a strong foundation in the gospel, the crucial role parents play in their children's spiritual preparedness, and the often-overlooked necessity of articulating one's beliefs with conviction.
Embarking on a godly life requires more than sheer determination; it calls for divine power and a thriving relationship with Jesus. We dissect the teachings of 2 Peter chapter 1, bringing to light the transformative role the Holy Spirit plays in overcoming sin. Our conversation pivots to personal growth, the reality of spiritual warfare, and the profound truth that our salvation is not just a ticket to heaven but a call to action, as underscored by Ephesians 2:10.
Stepping onto a college campus comes with its own set of trials and triumphs. We open up about strategies that can make or break a college career, from establishing rapport with professors to the art of fostering goodwill. Join us for an episode filled with wisdom and guidance tailored for young adults as they embrace their journey through faith and education.
You are listening to Fellowship Around the Table.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another week of Fellowship Around the Table, where we endeavor to have great conversations about life, faith and the Bible. This is Heath Casey and today Around the Table I have my good friend Rick Griffith.
Speaker 1:Hey, nice to be here, Good morning.
Speaker 2:Rick, thank you For many years working here together. At Fellowship Bible Church we did a class for seniors called Ready to Launch in the spring before they were heading out into the big world. Right, big crossroads, big transition in life. Either college or work. Yeah, roads, big transition in life.
Speaker 1:Either college or work. Yeah, it came out of a desire for Allison and I to help graduating seniors prepare for the world they were about to enter. We found most kids raised in a Christian environment weren't ready for it, and I wanted to test them before they got to a college or a work environment that would test their faith severely, and wanted to give them some of what's going to happen and some ways to ensure that they understand their faith and can communicate their faith.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, we were finding the big statistics, you know the big picture that a lot of kids were leaving the home and ditching their faith, you know, not continuing on and growing in their faith in Christ. But then you kind of looked internally at just this church and the kids that you had seen come through here.
Speaker 1:Well, it started off with a statement I made but we're a Bible church, that's right. We're different. We're different and what I started finding out is we weren't any different. It isn't an intentional ditch. They get confronted, they don't know why they believe what they believe, and then they start questioning and they really don't have a defense. They have a faith, but not a defense of that faith, and we wanted to give them some ideas on how to defend their faith.
Speaker 2:And go into that transition with an intentional spiritual plan. Yes, you're planning for work, you're planning for school, you're planning financially, you're planning where you're going to live, you're planning all these other things. And we found that most families and most kids didn't even think about the spiritual planning, didn't cross their mind.
Speaker 1:Right when I did the class we did the class I read an article by a British pastor that has run into the same thing in Britain. He started getting pretty ugly with the parents and saying you spent all this money getting Johnny ready to go to here and have plenty of food, but you haven't even talked about the spiritual needs that Johnny's going to have at college. And he was getting pretty ugly with the parents sometimes. He said it's kind of like sending the fish to college and there's no water there. And you haven't. You know you need water. And it's like how did you expect them to come back? You haven't given them anything to nourish their faith while they're there. That's what created the follow-on to says, yeah, you've provided for their college days, but have you provided for their spiritual days at college? And it's not go to church because mom and dad said so. Yeah, let's go to church because you want to. That's right. That's your community, that's right.
Speaker 2:One of the things we brought into the perspective into this class is wasn't really oh, it's a big, scary world Like we just wanted you to be intentional because both me and you thrived spiritually at college and it can be such an incredible time of spiritual growth.
Speaker 1:It can set the foundation for your spiritual world for the rest of your life. That's right. High school, yes, does some of that. It's that give and take in college where you learn that this is real. Yeah, this is dependable. I've trusted it and from, like you and me, when you get involved in a good Christian community, it's the foundation for the rest of your life yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, let's talk about some of the key points that you talked about in Ready to Launch, on preparing these kids for their first major kind of crossroads in life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, these are the week seven summations of what we've done in the previous six weeks is we gave them a way to understand and articulate the gospel. Yeah, if you're not comfortable with that, when the gospel gets assaulted which it will you don't have any defense. And if you understand the gospel and can articulate it, you have a way to not let it create doubts in your mind.
Speaker 2:This point came out of the book Sticky Faith, which we read in preparation for this and amongst many resources and one of the things the researchers came out of there, who probably did the most in-depth research on why are kids leaving the church after they leave the home and one of the things they found interviewing thousands of kids is they really couldn't articulate the gospel. They really couldn't say it for themselves.
Speaker 1:That was something we spent a lot of time on. It's virtually impossible to stand up to a professor that's bent on challenging everything you believe, and they know what they know and you don't know what you think. You know You're at a huge disadvantage.
Speaker 2:That's right. So point number one, and really the foundation, understand and be able to articulate the gospel, that's right.
Speaker 1:The second one is just as important, if not more. It's his divine power, gives you everything you need to live a godly life. If you haven't studied 2 Peter, the first chapter, it is remarkable. Peter gives his audience, which is churches along the northern part of Turkey, the secret sauce. It's God's divine power that gives you life and godliness, not how much you know or how good you were or how many times you went to church. It's learning how the Spirit of God is in you and how to use that in your faith.
Speaker 1:Excellent Peter goes on to say if you don't learn these things, they will make you ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of Christ. We have this concept that Christianity is about getting saved and therefore I just live normally until I go to heaven someday. It's nothing further from the truth. You're saved for a purpose and that's to be effective and productive in your knowledge of Christ through the rest of your given Christian days. He gives some very specific things eight in fact that can give you a roadmap to being effective and productive, and he states it in the negative in verse 12. He says for if you don't possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of Christ, which means, unfortunately, in my 40 years as a Christian I've met some ineffective and unproductive people in the body. That's a shame.
Speaker 2:It is so. Point number two his divine power gives you everything you need to live a godly life.
Speaker 1:Number three Understand that you have an enemy. The scripture is replete with the ability to stand strong against the schemes of the devil. He has schemes and he really is not that creative. He's just been doing it for 6,000 years. So he's got the schemes down. What we did is through a series of scriptures 1 Peter, 5, 8, ephesians 6, hebrews 12,. His major scheme is to weigh you down in sin. Ephesians 6, hebrews 12,. His major scheme is to weigh you down in sin. When you're weighed down in sin, to capture you in sin, then you're afraid to share the gospel because you're not perfect.
Speaker 1:You're afraid to defend your faith, because somebody might have seen you do this or that, and it's Satan's way to capture your mind and make it ineffective for your Christian walk. It's dangerous.
Speaker 2:I remember in the class it says schemes of the devil there in that verse and in the old English it says wiles, and I always make the connection with Wile E Coyote because he's got all these schemes, he's wily and he's trying to catch the roadrunner and I remember bringing it up in class and not a single kid knew who Wiley Coyote was. That's when, I think, I officially felt old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do that now and say some things to even my kids and they go Dad. That was a long time ago.
Speaker 2:All right. Point number three you have an enemy. Stand strong against the schemes of the devil, because he wants to weigh you down in sin.
Speaker 1:Number four Paul, early in his first letter, says so I say live by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
Speaker 2:Okay, can I read that how most people hear that? Yeah, do not gratify the desires of the sinful nature, and then you will live by the Spirit.
Speaker 1:They get it backwards. And it is the answer to the previous question. We all have sin in our lives Because you become a Christian doesn't make you completely free of sin. Right, it frees you from the penalty of sin, which is death. It frees you from the penalty of sin, which is death, but you do have the Holy Spirit to help you, not sin, and it's the only way to get on top of sin. That goes back to the verse before. It's his divine power that gives you everything for godliness, not individual willpower.
Speaker 1:No, that's not going to work. God never intended that to be the source of how you live your Christian life.
Speaker 2:That's right and that is that complexity and depth of our salvation. Yes, we're saved from the penalty of sin, but we are being saved from the power of sin. Yes, if we grow, yeah right, there's a caveat. Yes, if we grow, yeah right, there's a caveat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I find too much of the Christian community that I'm around that don't know that they should be growing and they get frustrated in their lack of ability to combat sin in their lives. Yeah. When the answer is and they're trying to do it on their lives. Yeah, when the answer?
Speaker 2:is, and they're trying to do it on their own.
Speaker 1:Grow, yeah, grow, grow is all through the New Testament. Grow in your faith, make effort to grow in your faith. Yeah. And that's what we were challenging the kids about is you have a responsibility. When you get to wherever you're going school or your next job it's going to be different than a home life that was centered around a Christian existence. So grow, Grow in your faith and you'll be much better equipped to handle what's coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, point number four. So I say live by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
Speaker 1:Number five Get to know Jesus, Not just know about Jesus. We hit this pretty hard because a lot of people have a basic understanding about who Jesus was, but they don't have a personal knowledge of Jesus in their life. But they don't have a personal knowledge of Jesus in their life. We gave them a simple remedy consume the book of John. We also taught. Don't just read it, consume it, Get everything, read it, reread it, listen to it, do whatever you have to do to make the book of John real to you, because it is the gospel about John's best friend, Jesus. It is remarkable in its insights on Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Point number five get to know Jesus, not just about him.
Speaker 1:Number six God's always at work. Ephesians 2.10 says we've been saved for good works which God has set apart in eternity past for us to do. So many of us wait for this epiphany to show up and says I might be involved in that. The answer is on a college campus which was most of this directed at. God is at work on all the college campuses. There's an organization you can join. There's a group you can be part of. There's a community there. God's at work around you. He invites you to be involved with him. What you need to do when you hit that next place in your life is look for it. Be mindful. There's a Christian community here that God wants me to be a part of. I need to be absorbed into that so that we mutually encourage one another.
Speaker 2:One of the things we encourage them to do is not wait until the first week they get there. You can but the internet today you can pre look for where God is at work through parachurches, local churches. Make that a family exercise. Where are we going and what's the plan spiritually, to get involved in a Christian community right out of the gate?
Speaker 1:And I'll add a caveat to the parents. It's not your job to pick your kid's church in college. It's your job to encourage them to find a community that they want to live in and be a part of, and then go visit. Wait two months, okay, don't go that first couple of months. Wait two months and then let them invite you to their church. Yeah, that is the secret sauce. It's no longer. I go here because my parents directed me here. So I have to go, because it's about the third or fourth week when they wake up and realize nobody's around and nobody's going to know whether I go or not.
Speaker 1:Make it their church, their place, their community. And then when you visit after that second month, they're taking you to their church. It is a remarkable time when you see little Johnny grow up and all of a sudden Johnny's taking responsibility for his Christian life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, that's great. So that was the final point there. Number six God is always at work around you and he invites you to be involved with him. Look for it.
Speaker 1:There's a caveat in here and it's a scripture that we use as a jumping off part. Paul wrote one of the very last letters to the churches, a church he had never visited but had been set up by somebody that he had discipled while he was in Ephesus. He wrote a letter that says Be careful that nobody spoils your faith through intellectualism and high-sounding nonsense. That description, if that's not the best description, of college.
Speaker 1:I don't know what is A bunch of people with intellectualism and high-sounding nonsense that they know a lot about, yeah, railroading and running over 18 year olds who may or may not have that kind of depth in their faith. Yeah. And that's what the modern day colleges are all about, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:So know that going in. Yes, know that going in. Don't be surprised. One of the other things we did in here, after kind of the spiritual planning and being intentional there is, you always ended up with just some really practical advice for kids that are going to college and it was always so well received. And having gone myself, I thought, wow, I wish I would have known those things when I went, because I stumbled on some of these. Would you go over those?
Speaker 1:pieces of advice. I even gave these to each one of my kids, and my last one fought me on some of it until she found out that it was very true. I did this all in fill in the blank, and it was always fun to see what they came up with. Some experience advice for college Professors are blank too, and it's amazing what they said I wanted them to understand that professors are people too.
Speaker 1:They have the exact same needs and fears and problems that you do. Don't either put them so high on a pedestal that they're unapproachable or so unassailable that you can't have at least some argument with them. The second one is like that Many professors have a terminal blank, and disease was what most people say and I said no.
Speaker 1:If you're a professor in a major university in chemistry, you have a PhD in chemistry. That's the terminal degree. You can't get any higher than a PhD and that drives number three. Therefore, the subject that they're teaching is very important to them. Chemistry may not be important to you. It's required in your degree. And so you shrug and go and say I'll sit on the back row and do what I think. I think the problem is this professor gave their life to this subject. Years of postgraduate work, yeah, years of teaching and then raising through the ranks to get to a major college. So this stuff's important to them. If you go and sit on the front row and ask questions and there's 300 people like I was in chemistry and A&M if there's 300 people there, you stand out. Yeah, the key is showing interest, builds rapport and it feeds the next one. This is where my youngest fought me on the next one. That goes with this. Let me sum up these things.
Speaker 1:Professors are people, most of them, many of them, have terminal degrees, which means that this subject is important to them. If you take it as important to you, you'll be amazed at how that professor will react to you individually, because it's so rare.
Speaker 2:Well, you're building goodwill capital Right. The fourth one.
Speaker 1:I always say and usually people at 18 have no idea what that means a story. My fourth one went to college, got great grades but had decided to go to a Frisbee tournament the weekend of a major paper. That was a good part of their grade. Didn't have time to do the paper, didn't? Turn it in.
Speaker 1:And this was towards the end of the semester it was going to reduce the grade minimally from an A to a B, potentially a C. So she came home for Thanksgiving and I said would you do me a favor? And she said what I said. I want to test that theory on Goodwill Capital. I said I know that you've worked your tail off and you like this professor, you know them. I want you to go in and ask for clemency. I screwed up. Can I do the paper and redeem myself? And she was so quick over Thanksgiving we didn't fight, but we discussed this openly pretty intensely. Dad, he says late papers always get a zero and don't ever come ask.
Speaker 1:And I said okay, I'm going to have you test this theory. She reluctantly agreed and I followed up with her and she said dad, you're not going to believe what he said. I said okay, first of all, are you an outstanding student? Yes, do you know this professor personally? Yes, so what did he say? He says you're one of my best students. I understand you got in a situation. Why don't you turn it in and I'll grade it and we'll see what's going on? And it saved her A and to this day she'll say building goodwill capital with a professor. By the way, they have office hours. That's what I was going to add.
Speaker 1:All professors have office hours.
Speaker 2:They will state them to you your first day of class. Always come by my office from here to here Maybe an hour or two.
Speaker 1:And nobody goes, nobody goes. My second daughter, who's deaf, always went Because the lecture didn't mean much to her, because the sounds she couldn't get most of it, but she would study the material and go ask the professor during their office hours. You think she was teacher's pet, you better believe it.
Speaker 1:He took an interest in her, by the way, she never heard a professor speak in college and graduated magna cum laude Biochemistry, not your throwaway degree. She did things we could always do, any of us could do. But the most important is she went and talked to the professor by the time. In fact, she did it before the lecture, so that by the time the lecture came, all she was doing is filling in a couple of holes that she had. If she caught the message, it was just that. Oh okay, yeah, I see now where it fit. She and the professor had already had an hour's discussion on it and let me tell you, building Goodwill Capital, that was huge.
Speaker 2:Go, and especially in the college that you are pursuing a degree in. Go visit the professors in their office.
Speaker 1:Number five is important. If you're in a college and a group of professors teach in that college, don't ever mistake the fact that you're always being evaluated. This group of professors teach in that college. Don't ever mistake the fact that you're always being evaluated. This group of people has to choose who's going to get internships, who's going to get projects, who's going to get opportunities, and you're always being evaluated. If you're a knucklehead and constantly disrupting the class. Yeah. Or if you're a antagonist, constantly challenging the professor to make them look bad and you good.
Speaker 2:Or if you're sitting on the back row and missing classes they don't even know who you are or staring up at the ceiling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, then you want to. Well, you know you passed out these projects. I really want to do that and they'll say no, I've reserved that for so-and-so, you can pick another one. You'll never know it, but you're always being evaluated on so many levels, and as you go into your job it's true as you enter your first experience at any job no-transcript.
Speaker 2:And I was asking that question what can they do? What can I give them to do? I don't quite know yet. Yes, I've had interviews, but you are going through this evaluation as an employer, right, yeah, and is this someone?
Speaker 1:I had internships out of OSU IT for an IT services company. They were six months internships. I knew at the end of this they wanted a job. There were some I kept and some I threw back and the answer was didn't like what I saw during that internship, and college is like that. It's the same way the professors in their group English, chemistry, whatever your major is they're looking for the standouts. Yeah, and you can stand out not just by your GPA but by your desires to learn Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:All right, I love six and seven. I needed to hear this before I went to college.
Speaker 1:Your grade point average. Yes, when you only have the first 15 hours and you have a 2.0 GPA, it's virtually impossible to get that better because every time you add more hours, the hours that you take get diminished as far as the total. And to run it up from a 2.0, if you get it above three at the end of your college career, you're doing a good job. It takes a lot. The inverse is true. It's almost impossible to screw up a good GPA. If you're in your junior year, heading into a senior year and you've got a GPA above 3.5, the number of hours that you're taking don't affect the total that much. Everybody says it's the same number divided. No, no, no, you've got all of these hours and the 12 hours you just took don't really affect it. The average.
Speaker 2:It's very hard to rescue a bad GPA and it's very hard to mess up a great GPA. I was one of these. I did great in high school, got to college at Oklahoma State and did not have a good GPA my first year. I was doing too much and wasn't that interested in the courses, the entry level basic stuff. I was more interested in very specific things and spent the rest of my undergrad trying to rescue that, which I did. But then I got excited about what I was specifically learning later on and even wanted to go to graduate school. Well, I was in trouble with that and even wanted to go to graduate school. Well, I was in trouble with that and so I applied to go to KU graduate school. My undergrad GPA did not qualify. I only got in because of my test score and then my first semester I was on probation All from that first year of college. I was getting the dividends from that first year. They're not the ones you want.
Speaker 1:If you're listening to this, parents, don't set your child up for frustration, but set your child up to understand that a good start will pay off tremendously in the end. Yeah, yeah, if you're a senior, like my daughter was, and wants to go play a volleyball game or a Frisbee game over the weekend or in a tournament, you get away with stuff that you can't get away with that first year and your relationships that you build up over that time matter Goodwill capital.
Speaker 2:What's the next point on there?
Speaker 1:Friends you go through that first semester can become friends for life. Yeah, you're in an unusual situation you've never been in before you are. I heard somebody that went on to OU and I asked her later. She says I've never been so lonely around so many people. You're in a school of 18 to 20,000 people but you don't know that many, you don't know what they know about you and you don't know anything about them and it can be very lonely and it can be very intimidating that first friend group that gets you through that intimidation. It's not unusual for them to be friends for life because you went through the war together, the transition together.
Speaker 1:Number nine I call it the Lone Ranger problem. You're not designed to go through college alone. God built community in churches, in college and in different times of your life, business communities. If you're out there fighting the fight by yourself, eventually you're going to wear out. But if you find a community, like-minded community, that can build you up when you're getting torn down by the systems, then you can win. But if you're out there by yourself, eventually it all gives away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and lastly.
Speaker 1:I've added this over the years my biggest employment challenge. I've been an employer four or five times in my career with small businesses. When we passed the medical marijuana law in Oklahoma, I was just overwhelmingly both flabbergasted and frustrated. I can't tell you how many kids I come at now and they want to show me their medical marijuana card. And I said, well, I'm sorry, I can't tell you how many kids I come at now and they want to show me their medical marijuana card. And I said, well, I'm sorry, I can't hire you. And they said, well, that's against the law. And I said, no, you have to understand.
Speaker 1:All of the people that work here have to drive to clients sometime to either deliver something or to render service. If you hit somebody, run a stop dying, run a stoplight and kill them. They're not coming after you, they're coming after me. So I have what's called safety-sensitive positions. A medical marijuana license doesn't mean anything because of my liability, so I know I don't have to hire you. The other thing is as an employer remember, I'm evaluating everything. If you come in high most of the time, or good amount of time, your productivity is going to wane. It's kind of a scourge on our employment industry in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2:The same thing happened where I'm at Rick. We are federally regulated because we deal with explosives and we drive big trucks and in both of those programs we have to do background checks because we cannot have felons and we have to do drug tests, add higher and continue on with a random pool. I think most kids don't realize that there's still several employment opportunities, dealing with the complexity of the laws and regulations, where that's still not permissible.
Speaker 1:Well and people need to understand. In Oklahoma, all of that is being litigated. They wrote this law on the back of a napkin and it was very generic.
Speaker 1:But then the legal community gets to fight over the specifics of safety, sense positions and balancing the rights of the employer and the rights of the employee. The safe way is to not get involved. Way is to not get involved. You're going to be available to those jobs, higher paying jobs, frankly, to drive those kinds of trucks, to be in an IT environment, you may have some great skills, but if you show me a medical marijuana card and tell me that you're active, my hands are tied. And the last one Always remember.
Speaker 1:I love this quote from 1 John 5, 14. You, dear children by the way, we are children of God, are from God and have overcome them because the one who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Don't be intimidated. Yeah, greater than he who is in the world. Don't be intimidated by a mean and sometimes anti-Christian environment. The spirit you have in you is greater than anything they can throw out. The issue is are you in touch with that spirit, are you in tune with the spirit of God who lives in you? And that takes work and effort. And if all you do is show up and if all you do is go home, then probably you're not well-versed in living by the Spirit. Go back to that one that says live by by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. It's the only way to show up christians for most of their lives don't really understand what that means.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get involved. Christians in the community and your life understand what that means and they're prepared to go to someplace like college or the workplace after high school.
Speaker 2:That's right. So last push there. Seniors, you're making plans for all these things for the rest of your life, but you're making big plans. Have an intentional spiritual plan. Spend time on that as well. Think through that. Have a plan, Spend time on that as well. Think through that. Have a plan God's at work, figure out where you're going, what he's doing, and get involved.
Speaker 1:And if you're a parent of a child going to college, don't forget the spiritual side. You're doing so much on finances and books and dorm rooms and college.
Speaker 2:Meal plan.
Speaker 1:It's amazing how much time you're spending on things that are important and we will ask you late into the semester, johnny or Susie's not doing well, and what did you do for her spiritual life? And it was like a light bulb goes off. Wow, we didn't prepare Johnny or Susie for her spiritual life in college. That just happens, right. No, it doesn't. It's intentional, that's the whole idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good stuff. Well, thanks for coming in, rick, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:Always my pleasure.
Speaker 2:All right, we'll see you all next week.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining Fellowship Around the Table. If you would like to learn more, go to FBCPulsaorg.
