I recently finished reading the Book of Job, and I read an interesting point at the end of the book, end of chapter 42.

God blessed Job’s later life even more than his earlier life. In addition to his 7 sons, he also had 3 daughters of whom there was not a woman in that country as beautiful. Their father treated them as equals with their brothers, providing the same inheritance.

I found that to be an interesting point to note since Job is known to have been written around the time of Abraham in Genesis when females were not so much looked upon as male equals, as the males were the ones to carry on the family name.

Each case should be considered on a case by case, teenager by teenager, basis. Some teens are ready to finish high school and move on to the college level, at least the community college level. There is an interesting article on this topic and Fox & Friends did a story on this topic this morning.

I have a friend currently in 10th grade considering doing this very thing. She was homeschooled from 1st-8th grade, entered public school in 9th grade and is passing each subject with flying colors. She works hard and has parents who greatly support her. I have complete confidence that she could pass a test to graduate early from high school and enter a community college then transfer to a 4-year college to complete her degree. Her maturity level is well above some high school students and she isn’t interested in a lot of the typical high school scenes.

The only concern I have is the social aspect of college life. Is a 16 year old ready emotionally and socially to enter the college scene?

Fox News did a story on the ad campaign to be seen on Washington, DC buses through December: “Why believe in God? Just be good for goodness sake.”

One answer: Because being good doesn’t earn us eternal life, eternal security, a Heavenly reward. There is only one way to Heaven -through Jesus, and acceptance of him.

See Psalm 16 (The Message). “Don’t go shopping for a god. Gods are not for sale … My choice is you, God, first and only. And now I find I’m your choice! … And then you made me your heir!”

There’s an interesting article in the newspaper about high school students dropping out of school before they graduate. If they aren’t staying in school, what makes us think they will stay in church?

One student is quoted in the article as saying “Learning should be fun.” She’s tired of learning and listening to teachers lecture from textbooks. She appreciates the teachers who “go beyond” and involve them in the learning process. We can understand that these students who are bored and not interested in classes at school aren’t going to be interested in church services and classes of the same format.

We must liven up our church services and classes and make them interesting and appealing to students (and anyone, for that matter). We must meet people on their learning levels and styles. We need to vary our teaching methods and offer a variety of ways to communicate the message.

Be creative. Involve attendees in the message.

I was never much of a race fan growing up. I grew up most of my life in central Florida and it was too far from Daytona to really even care about racing. It wasn’t one of the most popular sports anyway.

In the most recent years, though, I’ve grown to like racing and often watch the Nascar races on tv on the weekends. We’ve lived 10 minutes from Dover International Speedway for 4 years and tonight was my first experience at a race. Someone at work had free tickets so why not?!

It wasn’t one of the biggest races, so I didn’t see my favorite M&M car or Jeff Gordon or Carl Edwards flipping over backwards out of his car, but it was an experience … an experience that I’ll remember … the excitement, the thrill, the noise, the drivers logos and trucks … quite interesting.

For years we’ve been titling generational people groups. We’ve had Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960), Generation X (born early 1960′s-early 1980′s), then Millennials (born late 1970′s-2000′s), sometimes called Generation Y. They are the Facebook and MySpace generation, but according to this article in the Washington Post, this generation doesn’t like titles and doesn’t really know where they fit in so some of them have titled themselves as generation Nintendo.

Churches, children’s & youth ministries, and classrooms must recognize that Millennials/Generation Y want to be interactive. We must design our worship settings around experiences in which each individual can be involved. The teacher is the facilitator and the students are the teacher-learners. The facilitator-teacher offers the curriculum and gives the directions and the students learn by doing and participating.

In churches we can teach using video and media techniques then offer interactive games to reinforce the message. These games may look like active play time but the lesson is being reinforced and taught again through interactive play. In classrooms we can offer learning centers of various forms to teach concepts and skills for children to participate in the learning process. It looks like play time but they are learning valuable skills through play.

So you have a newsletter or brochure or flyer to get out about an event, but you’ve used the same old design over and over. You want this one to be different so people will take notice and it won’t end up on the floor of the car.

Start with using a different font to grab attention … Design your own font … Fontstruct.