The children between seven and twelve often come up to the altar on their own, during the Communion service, and take the elements as a personal covenant with their Lord. They are not forced to do this, just invited sometimes. They need no prodding. They love to do it.

"Of course our teenagers are too young to really serve God. They must wait until they are older." Not so. We are giving part of our Sunday evening service to the young people to conduct as they will. They understand the planning and presentation is up to them, that if it flops it flops. Again, we regard what they do as serious and significant, not some sop we are throwing to them, some cute little "young people's" activity. We expect them to mean business with God and we listen to what they have to say.

The teenagers can become very capable with flag and banner routines, with mime, with drama, with tambourines. They can participate in what we call yadah. One or two of the youngsters will stand before the congregation and, with appropriate movements, act out the worship songs being sung. This is yadah. When we take our youth seriously they take themselves seriously.

I think the Lord has charged me and no doubt numerous others with making the new covenant clear. The Christian new covenant has become lost under the rubble of salvation by grace, mansions in Heaven, an any-moment "rapture," and the rest of the current traditions. The new covenant actually has to do with a transformation of our personality so we keep God's commandments by nature. Our teenagers understand the difference between what we are preaching and the prevailing traditions and they can verbalize our message. They can portray it in mime. They mean business with God.

On occasion, as the Spirit of God seems to be directing, most of us in the assembly get up and march around the church. The only music is the drum. Some of the young people get the banners, including the great banner portraying our Champion on His white horse, while others come to the front and hurl their flags downward as an expression of the destruction of the enemy. The golden moment of the teenagers is now.

"We can't expect much from young adults. They are in college or getting married or just starting a career." We do not accept this. We expect the young adults to find out from the Lord what He wants them to do, whether service on some foreign field, or at home, or whatever God wants. Should they pursue higher education or not? This is the time they must look to the Lord for guidance so their life will not be wasted on accumulating money or assisting the world in its mad rush to destruction. Their golden moment is now.

"We know of course that those in their forties cannot really get down to business with serving God because they are in the middle of their careers, looking forward to serving God when they retire." This is the biggest lie of all.

To be continued.