🧑‍🏫 Teaching the Youth at Ealing Church

I am deeply grateful to God for the ten months—December 2022 through September 2023—that He allowed me to lead and teach the youth group at Ealing Church. Looking back now, I can see how remarkably He answered and guided every step of the way. All praise to Him.

The weight of that responsibility—standing before teenagers every Sunday to open the Word and lead worship—was no small thing. I think that burden is precisely what drove me to begin 2023 with a 21-day fast. I did not want to lean on my own inadequate strength or wisdom. I wanted to humble myself and ask fully for God’s help. He answered beyond what I expected.

Below is the message I sent to the parents when I first took over the youth group.

A Letter to Parents (December 2022)

Dear parents of our youth group,

I am genuinely honored to be taking on this role—and genuinely burdened by it. I am writing to share my vision, my hopes, and a few specific requests.

Through prayer, I have landed on three goals for our young people:

Establishing a biblical worldview and developing the ability to defend the faith
Moving beyond head-knowledge of Jesus to a personal, daily encounter with Him—“Jesus First”
Building deep, settled conviction that the Bible is the Word of God

Goal One: A Biblical Worldview

The world our children inhabit has become a battlefield of competing worldviews. The fundamental questions—Where did we come from? Why are we here? What is the root of humanity’s problems? Where do we go when we die?—are already being answered for them, loudly and constantly, by atheism, evolutionary theory, and secular humanism. From middle school onward, teachers, professors, social media algorithms, and entertainment platforms are pushing a godless worldview, packaging Darwinism, critical theory, and sexual confusion as enlightenment.

We cannot afford to simply absorb this. We need to go on offense—teaching our kids a coherent, Scripture-based worldview and giving them the intellectual tools to articulate and defend it. That is why “a biblical worldview rooted in the Word” will be my central curriculum focus from 2023 onward.

Goal Two: Jesus First

Our teenagers are pulled in a hundred directions—pressure to get into top universities, pressure to be popular, and the endless stimulation of an internet-saturated life. Everything competes for the top slot in their hearts. Against that backdrop, my deep desire is that they would encounter Jesus not as a concept or a religious obligation, but as a living Person—and that each of them would come to say with full conviction: “Jesus is my number one. More than university, more than success, more than popularity, more than anything that entertains me—Jesus first.”

To pursue this, we will join the main congregation for the first Sunday of every month, learning to experience the grace of sung worship and the preached Word together. We will also add a focused, crying-out-in-prayer time every week. And we are renaming the youth group: “예일이”—a wordplay on “Yale” and “예수 제일,” meaning “Jesus First.”

Goal Three: Confidence in Scripture

The enemy’s oldest tactic is to plant doubt about the Bible. “Is this really God’s Word?” “Does it have anything to do with my life today?” These questions will be thrown at your children—they already are. My goal is not only to answer those questions clearly in our Sunday sessions, but to train your kids to answer them confidently when their classmates and future colleagues challenge them. We will begin systematic Bible memorization, rotating student-led Bible studies, and weekly habits of self-directed reading.

Three Requests

I know full well that one or two hours on Sunday cannot reshape a teenager’s worldview on its own. The remaining 166 hours of the week matter enormously. So here is what I am asking:

Get your child a physical Bible—ideally bilingual, Korean and English. Yes, Bible apps are useful and I use them too. But there is something irreplaceable about physically turning pages, keeping a finger in one passage while looking up another, and drawing lines under verses that hit you. If your child does not yet have a Bible, let me know and we will find one together.
Create daily reading time—even ten minutes in the morning for a devotional, or fifteen minutes of family worship in the evening. Help your child build the habit of opening the Word themselves, not just listening to others open it for them. Tell me specifically how I can support that from the youth-group side, and I will do it.
Pray—with tears if necessary. Second Corinthians 1:11 says:

“…you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.”

2 Corinthians 1:11 (NKJV)

The grace that reaches our youth requires the prayers of many people. You are already praying for your children—I know that. I am asking you to take these specific goals and visions as your prayer targets, and to pray them into being with the eyes of faith.

Yale Youth Sermon Curriculum — 2022–2023

20221218 — “Jesus Who Came According to the Scriptures” (Matthew 2:1–12)
20230101 — “You Have Left Your First Love” (Revelation 2:1–7)
20230115 — “God’s Love Language” (Revelation 3:7–13)
20230122 — “Jesus First” (Revelation 3:14–21)
20230129 — “The Heavenly Throne” (Revelation 4:1–11)
20230212 — “God the Creator” (Psalm 8)
20230219 — “The God Who Gives Us Over” (Romans 1:18–32)
20230226 — “The Importance of Humility” (Philippians 2:5–11)
20230312 — “Overcoming the Flesh, Part 1” (Romans 6:11–13)
20230319 — “Overcoming the Flesh, Part 2: The Holy Spirit” (John 14:16)
20230326 — “Overcoming the Flesh, Part 3: Holiness” (2 Corinthians 6:16–7:1)
20230416 — “Jesus Who Was Crucified According to the Scriptures” (Mark 15:34)
20230423 — “Jesus Who Rose According to the Scriptures” (Hosea 6:1–3)
20230430 — [Guest preacher: Deacon Ahn Heung-bok]
20230514 — “Jesus Who Ascended According to the Scriptures” (Colossians 3:1–4)
20230521 — “Jesus Our Eternal High Priest According to the Scriptures” (Psalm 110)
20230528 — “The Holy Spirit Who Came According to the Scriptures” (Acts 2:1–4)
20230604 — “Jesus Who Is Coming Again According to the Scriptures” (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18)
20230611 — “The God Who Rules According to the Scriptures” (Isaiah 40)
20230618 — [Confirmation Sunday]
20230625 — “Leviticus 01” (Leviticus 1:1–9)
20230702 — “Leviticus 02” (Leviticus 2:1–16)
20230716 — “The Sabbath Commandment: Keeping Sunday Holy” (Exodus 20:9–10)
20230723 — “The Greatest Commandment” (Matthew 22:35–40)
20230730 — “The Ten Commandments” (Deuteronomy 5)
20230813 — “A Biblical Worldview” (Psalm 14:1)
20230820 — “The Trinity” (Matthew 3:16–17)
20230827 — “The Wrath of God” (Deuteronomy 32)
20230910 — “Bringing What Is Precious to the Lord” (Malachi 1)
20230924 — “The Tithe” (Malachi 2–3)