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Continuing the story of the conversation with the young man I introduced yesterday, who is enjoying our mentoring relationship and thinking about doing the same for someone else…

Josh will be leading a vacation bible school for teenagers this summer: five evenings with 60 – 70 kids. I asked him, “Will you be including daily time with God in your teaching?” He responded, “Oh, yes! We will be talking about that.” I countered, “Are you going to talk about it or are you going to do it?”

I explained that when I had 10 days with seminary students in Haiti, I taught them the first day how to have time with God. Then I assigned them a daily reading for each of the rest of the days, and we shared what God was telling us first thing every class period. As one of my graduate school professors used to say, “People don’t do what you EXpect; they do what you INspect!”

I also encouraged Josh to figure out a way to keep them going after the five days. Maybe give them another set of readings and set up accountability among the kids. For example, some men I was meeting with used to text each other daily with the main thought from our time with God.

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. (Hebrews 3.13, NIV)

The kids won’t remember much of what Josh tells them, but some may continue the practice of daily time with God if Josh teaches them how, encourages them during the week, and sets up accountability mechanisms to keep them going.

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…” (Matthew 28.18 – 20, NIV, emphasis mine)