The bell over the door of The Shepherds Cafe chimed with its soft, familiar note, and the room breathed out warmth—coffee and toasted cinnamon, damp coats drying near the entry, the quiet hum of conversation braided with low jazz. Outside, January sat heavy on the street. A thin rain made the windows look fogged and honest, like everything inside the café had to be faced.
Elijah was already in their corner booth, glasses low on his nose, short white beard neat, Bible open but not “displayed.” It sat like a tool you actually use. Jeremiah—an older Black man with a salt-and-pepper beard—had his forearms on the table, mug between his hands, eyes steady but tired in a way that came from caring too much for too long. Barbara slid in across from them with her scarf tucked close, phone in hand, not frantic—focused.
She didn’t start with small talk.
“We’ve got a proposal coming,” she said, voice quiet but firm. “It’s going to sound helpful. And it’s going to be a problem if we don’t handle it carefully.”
Elijah looked up. “Who’s bringing it?”
“A brother who means well,” Barbara replied. “He says he loves the teens. I believe him. But his idea is… big.”
Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed. “Big how?”
Barbara unlocked her phone and read the message without dramatics, because the words didn’t need help.
“We’re losing the young people. We need something exciting. I’ll help fund a monthly youth night—games, food, maybe rent a place. If we make it fun, they’ll come. We can use church funds. We can call it ‘outreach.’”
Barbara let the phone rest on the table like a weight.
For a moment, the café noise filled the space: a spoon against porcelain, espresso steaming, someone laughing too loudly near the counter. Then Jeremiah spoke, slow and blunt.
“That’s the temptation,” he said. “Not the brother. The idea.”
Elijah nodded once. “It’s the shortcut.”
Barbara’s brow tightened. “If I say anything, I’m afraid I’ll sound like I don’t care about kids.”
Jeremiah leaned back. “Caring isn’t the issue. Method is.”
Elijah closed his Bible gently—not to end Scripture, but to shift from reading to applying. “The premise is simple,” he said. “If you entertain them, you’ll keep them.”
Barbara gave a small, humorless breath. “And if you stop entertaining them, you lose them.”
Jeremiah’s gaze stayed fixed on the table, like he was building the argument piece by piece. “You can’t disciple somebody with a sugar rush. That’s not cynicism. It’s reality.”
Elijah’s tone didn’t soften the truth. “You win them with what you use to keep them. If the hook is fun, you’ll need bigger fun every year. If the hook is Christ, you’ll need deeper Christ every year.”
Barbara nodded, but she still looked troubled. “People are scared. They see teens drifting. They want to do something.”
“And we should,” Jeremiah said. “But not by turning the church into a recreation provider.”
Elijah’s eyes were steady. “We have to be honest: the church doesn’t exist to compete with the world’s entertainment. The church exists to make disciples.”
Barbara tapped the table lightly with one finger. “He’s going to argue it’s ‘for outreach.’”
Jeremiah’s lips pressed together. “That word gets abused.”
Elijah opened his Bible again, not theatrically—just deliberately—and turned it toward them. “Let’s start where the Lord starts,” he said. “The responsibility for training children is placed in the home. Not outsourced. Not rented out.”
He read quietly, clearly, without embellishment:
“These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons…” (Deuteronomy 6:6–7, NASB)
Jeremiah nodded. “That’s not a ‘youth ministry verse.’ That’s a family discipleship verse.”
Barbara’s expression shifted—less anxiety, more clarity. “So the church supports families doing that work… not replaces it.”
“Exactly,” Elijah said. “And when the church does something, it must be consistent with the work God assigned the church: teaching, building up saints, evangelism, and caring for needy saints.”
Jeremiah leaned forward. “And we’re not going to fund pizza parties from the Lord’s treasury and pretend we’re doing evangelism.”
Barbara held his gaze. “That’s going to upset people.”
Jeremiah didn’t flinch. “Truth upsets people before it settles them.”
Elijah added the needed balance. “We can be firm without being harsh. We don’t accuse motives. We correct methods.”
Barbara’s phone buzzed. She glanced down and read a follow-up message. Her eyes widened a little.
“He added: ‘If the elders won’t approve it, we’ll do it anyway. Teens need this.’”
Jeremiah’s jaw tightened. “That’s not support. That’s pressure.”
Elijah’s voice stayed even, but the line in it was unmistakable. “If someone is willing to bypass biblical order to ‘help,’ they’re teaching teens the exact wrong lesson.”
Barbara swallowed. “He also suggested making it a ‘church-sponsored’ event so parents will trust it.”
Jeremiah let out a short breath. “So he wants the credibility of the church, the money of the church, and the freedom to run it like a club.”
Elijah didn’t dramatize it. He simply stated the reality. “If we attach the name of the congregation to an entertainment program, we will be asked to pay for it, manage it, and defend it. And it will slowly redefine what people think the church is.”
Barbara looked down at her mug as if she could see a future there she didn’t want.
Jeremiah’s tone softened—not the conviction, but the care. “Barbara, you’re right to worry about sounding like you don’t love the kids. So let’s make the alternative so clear, so active, so visible, nobody can accuse us of doing nothing.”
Elijah nodded. “We don’t just say ‘no.’ We say ‘here is the better way.’”
Barbara’s face lifted. “Okay. Then tell me the better way. Concrete.”
Elijah sat forward slightly. “A youth plan that is biblical will look less like entertainment and more like apprenticeship.”
Jeremiah pointed gently, like he was laying out a map. “And it will involve older saints, not just peers. Teens need spiritual adults in their lives.”
Elijah turned to another passage. “Paul tells Timothy the model.”
“The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Timothy 2:2, NASB)
Jeremiah tapped the table. “That’s generational discipleship. Not generational amusement.”
Barbara began typing notes. “So what does that look like in real life?”
Elijah answered with the kind of practicality that makes it hard to dodge.
“Here’s the plan,” he said. “Not flashy. Effective.”
The better way
Weekly teen Bible study with accountability, not hype. “Not a pep talk,” Jeremiah added. “A real study. Real questions. Real answers. Real application.” Pair every teen with a vetted older mentor or couple. Elijah’s voice was steady. “Not a buddy system. A discipleship relationship. Bible reading, prayer, check-ins. Consistent.” Quarterly ‘Titus 2 nights’—teaching, not entertainment. Jeremiah nodded. “Older men with young men. Older women with young women. Not to ‘hang out’—to train.”
Barbara glanced up. “We’ll need Titus 2 in writing. People need to see it’s not a preference.”
Elijah turned pages again.
“Older men are to be… sensible… sound in faith… Older women likewise… that they may encourage the young women…” (Titus 2:2–4, NASB)
Jeremiah said quietly, “That’s God’s youth strategy.”
Service and evangelism as the “activity,” funded appropriately. Elijah spoke carefully here—because he knew the line mattered. “If members want to take teens out for a meal on their own dime, that’s their liberty. But the church’s work stays the church’s work. Our ‘activity’ should be teaching, visiting saints, helping genuinely needy, writing cards, inviting friends to Bible study—real ministry.”
Barbara’s eyes sharpened. “So we separate personal hospitality from church treasury.”
“Exactly,” Elijah said. “That’s both biblical and clean.”
Equip parents. Don’t replace them. Jeremiah leaned forward. “We build a simple, repeatable family discipleship guide—one page a week. Scripture, one question, one action. If parents don’t lead, no program will fix it.”
Barbara typed faster. “That is actually doable.”
Elijah’s tone stayed firm. “And we have to say it plainly: if a teen only shows up for fun, then we haven’t addressed the heart. We’ve just rented their attention.”
Jeremiah stared out the window for a moment, watching rain streak down the glass. “I’ve seen it. Churches build the ‘teen machine,’ and the moment the machine breaks, the kids vanish. Not because they were bad. Because we trained them to come for the machine.”
Barbara set her phone down. “So how do we respond to the brother without humiliating him?”
Elijah didn’t hesitate. “We thank him for caring. We refuse the treasury use for entertainment. And we invite him into the real work.”
Jeremiah added, “Make him useful. Not offended.”
Barbara nodded slowly. “I can draft the written plan and send it to the elders. I can write a bulletin article explaining the principle without naming anyone. But I won’t address the congregation.”
Elijah’s eyes were warm with approval, but he kept it professional. “That’s the right role.”
Jeremiah looked at Barbara. “In your bulletin note, don’t just say ‘no fellowship hall, no social spending.’ That’ll sound like a rule. Say what we’re saying here: discipleship is purposeful, Scripture-centered, and family-supported.”
Barbara’s mouth tightened thoughtfully. “And I’ll include a sentence like: ‘If you want to bless teens personally, do it—invite them, encourage them, be present. But don’t redefine the church’s mission.’”
Elijah nodded. “That’s clean.”
Barbara picked up her phone again. “Do we anticipate pushback?”
Jeremiah didn’t sugar-coat it. “Yes.”
Elijah matched the honesty but kept the hope. “But we’ll also attract the right kind of support. People who want deep faith, not crowded calendars.”
The waitress refilled their mugs. The café smelled like roasted beans and damp wool, and the world outside looked gray—but the table felt clearer.
Barbara looked at both men. “I’m going to say this straight,” she said. “If we choose the shortcut now, we will pay for it later.”
Jeremiah nodded. “And the ones who pay will be the kids.”
Elijah’s voice was quiet, but it carried. “Then we don’t take the shortcut.”
Barbara picked up her pen and began outlining the plan in her notes with a steadier hand than when she’d walked in. Outside, rain kept tapping the window—steady, persistent, ordinary. Inside, three saints made a decision that wasn’t flashy, but was faithful: no bribes, no gimmicks, no panic. Just the long obedience of disciple-making.
And in that corner of The Shepherds Cafe, it felt like the kind of choice that would still matter ten years from now.
A warm, rainy-morning scene inside The Shepherds Cafe. Barbara (older white woman with a short blonde/gray bob haircut and a scarf) sits closest to the viewer, holding her phone with a blurred message about “youth nights” visible. Elijah (older white man with glasses and a short white beard) sits beside an open Bible and a simple notebook labeled “Discipleship Plan,” his posture calm and decisive. Jeremiah (older Black man with a salt-and-pepper beard) sits across, leaning forward with a serious, protective expression—clearly concerned for the teens. Coffee mugs, a pen, and a single printed page titled “Titus 2 / 2 Tim 2:2” rest on the table. In the background, soft café lights glow, and rain streaks down the window, giving the moment gravity and warmth without gloom.