Author Tim Barnett
Published on 05/22/2023
Tactics and Tools

How to TRAIN Youth: Nurture the Wounds of Our Youth

Tim Barnett explains why we need to encourage, defend, and pray for our youth.
 


Transcript

So, we’re T—testing our youth. We’re R—requiring more of them. We’re A—arming them with the truth. We’re I—involving them in the battlefield of ideas, and N—we’re nurturing their wounds because when they get involved in the battlefield of ideas, they need their wounds taken care of.

This is where you need to be there for them. There’s a guy in UFC, and he’s a cut man. His job is simple: Stop the bleeding so that the fighter can get back in the ring. That’s what you’re going to be—a cut man. Sometimes you’re going to have to pray for your students. Sometimes you’re going to have to be there. Encourage your students. They may come home ridiculed. I talked to so many students this weekend who had traumatic experiences with friends at school, where they were called homophobes. They were called bigots and intolerant. It breaks my heart. It wasn’t that long ago when I was in high school. We didn’t have to deal with that. That’s what they’re dealing with. They’re getting called into the principal’s office because it’s “hate speech” to echo the biblical worldview.

We’ve got to be there for our kids—maybe to help them defend, maybe to encourage them, maybe to pray for them. And so, we train. That’s our mindset now. We’re going to take teaching and turn it into training. I, for one, am sick of seeing our young people bleeding out on the battlefield. The Marines have this motto: “The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.” It’s obvious, right? You train so you don’t bleed out, but we’re sending our kids out in this battle, and, honestly, the battle isn’t out there at the university. It starts as soon as they hold a cell phone and they see all these ideas flooding in. Now they’re exposed to all the ideas out there and all this stuff that’s going on. We need to do better. And one of the things we can be doing—just one—is to start training the minds of our students.