Passing the Torch - Mentoring the Next Generation for Christ

By Warren A Henderson

Like the Olympic torchbearers, Christians are also called to pass a torch from generation to generation. The light of biblical Christianity shines in the world today because faithful believers through the ages dedicated themselves to the accurate transfer of doctrine to new Christians and then equipped them to live out this truth. This is our legac

• Language: English
• Publisher: Warren A Henderson
• Release date: Jul 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781939770042

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Warren Henderson

All Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible, unless otherwise noted. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Nashville, TN

Passing the Torch – Mentoring the Next

Generation for Christ

By Warren Henderson

Copyright © 2011

eBook Published by Warren A. Henderson

ISBN 978-1-939770-04-2

Perfect Bound Paperback

Published by Gospel Folio Press

304 Killaly Street West

Port Colborne, ON, L3K 6A6, Canada

ISBN 978-1-926765-65-5

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Other Books by the Author

Afterlife – What Will It Be Like?

Answer the Call – Finding Life’s Purpose

Be Holy and Come Near– A Devotional Study of Leviticus

Behold the Saviour

Be Angry and Sin Not

Conquest and the Life of Rest – A Devotional Study of Joshua

Exploring the Pauline Epistles

Forsaken, Forgotten, and Forgiven – A Devotional Study of Jeremiah

Glories Seen & Unseen

Hallowed Be Thy Name – Revering Christ in a Casual World

Hiding God – The Ambition of World Religion

In Search of God – A Quest for Truth

Knowing the All-Knowing

Managing Anger God’s Way

Mind Frames – Where Life’s Battle Is Won or Lost

Out of Egypt – A Devotional Study of Exodus

Overcoming Your Bully

Passing the Torch – Mentoring the Next Generation

Revive Us Again – A Devotional Study of Ezra and Nehemiah

Seeds of Destiny – A Devotional Study of Genesis

The Beginning of Wisdom – A Devotional Study of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon

The Bible: Myth or Divine Truth?

The Evil Nexus – Are You Aiding the Enemy?

The Fruitful Bough – Affirming Biblical Manhood

The Fruitful Vine – Celebrating Biblical Womanhood

The Hope of Glory – A Preview of Things to Come

The Olive Plants – Raising Spiritual Children

Your Home the Birthing Place of Heaven

Table of Contents

Title Page

Other Books By This Author

Passing the Torch

Ignorance is not Bliss

Circumventing Truth

A Pattern to Follow

Light Out of Darkness

The Mentor

The Mentee

The Mentoring Balance

What is Biblical Training?

The Goals of Mentoring

Stimulating Teens to Grow

Available Resources

Enhancing Church Body Life

The Challenge

Endnotes

Passing the Torch

Every two years the best athletes from around the world converge on one location to compete in either the Summer or Winter Olympic Games. In addition to a festive and often elaborate opening ceremony, the Olympic torch tradition also precedes the games. This ritual, which has its origins in Greek mythology, involves bringing the Olympic flame from Athens, Greece to the site of the games. A torch ignited from intensely-focused sunlight is transported to the opening ceremony where it is used to ignite fuel within an elevated cauldron. This dazzling conflagration called The Olympic flame illuminates the stadium until the games have concluded.

It often requires several months for the Olympic torch to reach its final designation as it is hand-carried by hundreds of runners and over thousands of miles. Each runner after completing his or her leg of the relay hands the torch off to the next runner. As several other sporting events also have a torch-bearing custom, the practice itself has become a widely understood idiom; passing the torch means to transfer responsibility to someone else.

The Lord Jesus talked to His disciples of His light-bearing ministry to the world and told them that they would be responsible to continue it: I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life (John 8:12); You are the light of the world … Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven (Matt. 5:14-16). There were no flashlights or gas lanterns at that time, so the disciples would have understood the Lord’s reference to be to an oil lamp or a burning torch. Both sources of light were portable, and the disciples were to be mobile light-bearers. The light of Christ (i.e. His truth) was to shine out of them wherever they went. After His resurrection, the Lord formally commissioned His disciples to do this very thing. They were to preach the gospel message and to teach those who responded to it all they knew to be true concerning Christ. That work has continued to the present day and will continue until the end of the Church Age (Matt. 28:19-20).

Each and every Christian is to be a beacon of truth, an instrument of God to illuminate the way of salvation for the lost. Paul engaged in this important work while at Ephesus and those he witnessed to passed it on to others (Eph. 4:20-21). Paul committed the same truth to Timothy, who in turn transferred it to those who would faithfully teach others (1 Tim. 2:7; 2 Tim. 2:2). The message of the gospel must be shared with the lost, and those who hearken to it must be taught sound doctrine and holy living, and be prepared to share with others what they have learned. The light of Christ is not to be hidden; rather, it is to shine out from believers for all to see!

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all (1 Jn. 1:5) … Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining (1 Jn. 2:8) … My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him (1 Jn. 3:18-19).

Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain (Phil. 2:14-16).

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. (Eph 5:8-11).

The Lord Jesus Christ is the Light of the world and all Christians are called upon to declare Him wherever they go. In an allegorical sense, each believer is a torchbearer for Christ. A torchbearer is someone who leads by example and inspires others to live for the Lord. Torchbearers willingly pass along what they have learned and assist those they mentor to do the same. If our goal is to simply hand off the truth to others, those who follow us will be ill-prepared for godly service. Christians must not only pass the torch, but they must also equip the next runners to hand it off effectively also. Teaching the truth to people without allowing them to practice it and to learn through experience does not properly equip them for ministry. 

Each generation of torchbearers will face different obstacles than the previous one. There will always be new challenges to overcome in a Christ-hating world laden with sin. In the western culture, Christians are being bombarded by humanism, moral relativity, higher criticism, intellectualism, high-tech amusements, and luxuries. Some of these influences have caused many professing Christians to ignore sound doctrine and the Lord’s call of separation. Many have found it is easier to settle into the world than it is to confront an erroneous system which pampers the flesh and promotes ease.

Can you imagine a runner in the torch-relay suddenly tossing the Olympic torch into the ocean and taking up residence at some beautiful beach resort he or she spotted along the relay route? Surely, such a thing has never happened! Yet, this scenario occurs in Christianity all too often; thankfully, some have snatched the torch from the hands of negligent runners and have faithfully carried it onward. Why should the hoards of lost souls seriously consider the claims of Christ when many Christians do not? Why should the unregenerate fear hell and eternal judgment when the Christians they associate with are quite satisfied with the temporary thrills and the sensual trinkets of the world? Accordingly, many today do not view the Modern Church with hostility, but rather as an irrelevant pastime that should simply be ignored.

Passing the torch to the next generation in such a way to ensure that they will in turn pass it along to others is a difficult task. How does one motivate younger believers, especially our own children, to catch the vision and be sold out for Christ? How do we excite them to be active participants in church body-life, rather than being disengaged spectators? How can we inspire believers to enthusiastically receive the torch of truth, carry it boldly, and then hand it off with the confidence that the next generation will do the same? The author realizes that these are broad questions which have a variety of possible answers which will be influenced by individual circumstances. The goal of this book is to answer these questions by defining biblical principles and providing practical counsel that can be applied over a wide range of situations.  

Like the Olympic torchbearers, Christians are also called to pass a torch from generation to generation. The light of biblical Christianity shines in the world today because faithful believers through the ages dedicated themselves to the accurate transfer of doctrine to new Christians and then equipped them to live out this truth. This is our legacy, our calling in Christ, and the best inheritance we can leave our children. There is no greater privilege or honor in life than to be a torchbearer for Christ.

God fully expects the church of Jesus Christ to prove itself a miraculous group in the very midst of a hostile world. Christians of necessity must be in contact with the world but in being and spirit ought to be separated from the world—and as such, we should be the most amazing people in the world.

— A. W. Tozer

Ignorance is not Bliss

On July 12, 1997 Eric Barcia, a 22-year-old Reston, Virginia resident, was found dead after he used a homemade bungee cord to jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle. After carefully measuring the distance of the trestle to the ground the fast food worker taped a number of bungee cords together and strapped one end around his foot and anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park. After jumping from the trestle he proceeded to fall headfirst and hit the pavement below several seconds later. Fairfax County police said The stretched length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than the distance between the trestle and the ground. In this unfortunate story, ignorance was not bliss – it was deadly.¹

Winston Churchhill once said, Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it; but there it is.² Though God does not expect us to know everything, He does have certain expectations about what we are to understand (Deut. 29:29). His revealed truth is absolute and is more relevant to life than the air we breathe. For the Christian, it is utter folly to remain ignorant when there is a Bible to be read and an eternity to be prepared for. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe surmised, There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. Alternate translation: Nothing is so terrible as activity without thought.³ Yet, action without understanding has become commonplace in the modern Church and to some extent this behavior is perceived as honorable. However, mental apathy is an unacceptable excuse for ignoring what God deems is important for us to know and live by.

Most people remain ignorant because they are satisfied to live that way. Unfortunately, many Christians these days are satisfied with playing Church without any regard for what Christ said the Church should be and should be doing. This willful ignorance of God’s plan has plagued His people throughout the ages and is one of the chief reasons the next generation has not been properly prepared to serve Christ. Ignorance breeds more of the same; therefore, it stands to reason that God’s truth must be understood and yielded to before God will bless our efforts in mentoring the next generation to serve Him.

Two thousand years ago, for example, Israel was ignorant of God’s righteousness— not because they had never been told the truth, but rather because they refused to live according to it (Rom. 10:1-3). The Jews were proud and stubborn; they would not submit to God’s revealed truth in Christ, but rather sought to please God by doing religious things. Does this sound familiar? Many in Christendom today are making the same mistake. Willful resistance to the truth results in spiritual ignorance. As the Jews found out, such behavior does not impress God, but rather ensures His condemnation.

Today, many local churches have become mere social gatherings that are more concerned with entertaining visitors and creating a weekly spectatorship than they are with worshiping the Lord and teaching His Word. This dislike of order and rules, which is prevalent in our post-modern culture, has invaded much of the modern Church. Many churches are doing their own thing rather than being a supernatural body that honors Christ in all things. The great commission and the process of discipleship have largely been replaced by programs, entertainment, philosophical dialogues, and social movements. In these gatherings, Christ receives lip-service and an occasional honorable mention, but sold-out devotion is nearly non-existent. For many in the modern Church, it is not Christ, but the superglue of programs which holds their church together. What is happening to the Church today is exactly what happened to the Jews two millennia ago: self-proclaimed spiritual people are thumbing their noses at God’s revealed truth in order to pursue their own religious activities.

It seems to me a significant, if not a positively ominous, thing that the words program and programming occur so frequently in the language of the Church these days.

— A. W. Tozer

Paul warned the believers at Corinth to consider God’s dealings with the Jews in the Old Testament and to learn from their