Legacy Youth Ministry Resources

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When the Foundations are Crumbling

We as Christians must not simply deal with surface problems. We must deal with the foundations that are crumbling under our families and nation. Josh McDowell writes of a friend who wanted to purchase the house next door as an investment. The reason? The house had not been kept up and was occasionally rented to drug dealers and users. By purchasing it, he could fix it up and control who rented it. So, he got a relative with experience in construction to look over the house. As they looked at the rooms, the builder noted that although it needed some repair, it was fixable. But the basement revealed a greater problem. The support structure sagged and major cracks were in the foundation. The builder pronounced: ?This place is falling down,? his companion told him. ?Nothing you fix up there? -- he pointed his index finger to the upper floors -- ?will be worth a dime because of what?s wrong down here.? There was no use fixing up the living area of the house since the foundation was crumbling. (From Right from Wrong Book by Josh McDowell, from the collection of Barry St. Clair)

Ted Koppel on Ten Commandments, Not Suggestions

"We have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us. Shoot up if you must, but use a clean needle. Enjoy sex whenever and with whomever you wish, but wear a condom. No! The answer is NO. Not because it isn't cool or smart or dying in an AIDS ward; but NO because it is WRONG, because we have spent 5,000 years as a race of rational human beings trying to drag ourselves out of the primeval slime by searching for truth and moral absolutes. In its purest form truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is a howling reproach. What Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai were the Ten Commandments not the ten suggestions." (Ted Koppel Koppel, anchor of "Nightline," who has won every major broadcasting award, including 37 Emmy Awards, in a speech at Duke University)

Socrates on Heaven

Four hundred years before the birth of Christ, Socrates, the great Greek philosopher, drank the poison hemlock and lay down to die. ?Shall we live again?? his friends asked. The dying philosopher, who had thought deeply about life, could only reply, ?I hope so. No man can know.? You see, unless God tells us what awaits us on the other side of death's door, we're doomed to uncertainty about eternity. Four hundred years after Socrates death, God revealed Himself to mankind through His Son, Jesus Christ. Now we can know with certainty that God has opened heaven's door for us.

Students Believe Truth is Relative

In the opening sentence of university professor Allan Bloom's book, The Closing of the American Mind, he states, ?There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.?

C.S. Lewis on Moral Absolutes

C.S. Lewis wrote, Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining ?it?s not fair? before you can say Jack Robinson. It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may sometimes by mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table.

Einstein on Joy and Ethics

??knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the inquiring and constructive mind.? ?What these blessed men have given us we must guard and try to keep alive with all our strength if humanity is not to lose its dignity, the security of its existence, and its joy of living.? (Sept., 1937 letter, found in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Selected and edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, 1979, pp. 70,71)

Einstein on the Most Important Human Endeavor

?The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. ? To make this a living force and bring it to clear consciousness is perhaps the foremost task of education.? (Found in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Selected and edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, 1979, p. 95)

Columbine and God's Image

Two high school students had so much going for them. They came from upper-middle class families. No struggle with poverty. They seemed to have stable homes. Their parents weren't divorced. They had activities like bowling and boy scouts. They were intelligent. So what caused them to walk into Columbine High School and unleash an arsenal of weapons, killing 12 students and a teacher, and wounding many for life? Sure, they were fed up with the bullying, taunting and teasing. But lots of students take abuse from other students without plotting a sinister revenge. I think a root of their problem goes back to their belief system. If they believed in God at all, they despised Him. So to them, people had no great worth in themselves. To them, people were just another species of animal. So what's wrong with taking a few of them out? How we view ourselves and other people makes a tremendous difference in how we treat ourselves and others. (Written by Steve Miller, Facts from Angie Cannon; Betsy Streisand; Dan McGraw; David Whitman; Douglas Pasternak; Chitra Ragavan; James Morrow; Franklin Foer, Why?. Vol. 126, U.S. News & World Report, 05-03-1999, pp 16.)

Einstein on Science and Religion

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. --Albert Einstein

All Fails...Lower Standards

If all else fails .. lower your standards - Bumper Sticker

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