Rich Harasick and Generations of Grace (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said,.

�But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Interviewing Rich Harasick and His Ministry at Grace Community Church

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and we have different formats for different days, and I don�t think I�ve interviewed many people recently. I couldn�t figure out anybody of a high enough caliber to interview, and then I stumbled into, accidentally stumbled into, serendipitously accidentally stumbled into my friend Rich Harasick at the Shepherds Conference, an elder at Grace Community Church, and thought, �He needs to be on No Compromise Radio.

Rich, welcome to the show.

Well, thanks for having me. As a Calvinist and having a high view of the sovereignty of God, do you accidentally do anything? Yeah.

Well, you could not see my hands putting up the quotes. Okay. So, luckily, you couldn�t see that, Rich. Rich, I have a bone to pick with you first, before we talk about the Lord and the ministry that He�s granted you.

It�s rumored that you listen to No Compromise Radio, but you listen at double speed. Now, just why is that?

I do. Well, I listen to three podcasts. I listen to you, James White, and Al Mohler, and I listen to you guys on my commute to work. So, just to be able to cram all you in, I, on my iPhone, push on double speed.

Now, the benefit to you is that you sound really smart when you talk fast.

Hey, I�ll take anything I can get. I think James White, actually, when he is listening to false teachers, Rich, I think he listens at double speed as well. So, what does that tell you about me and my teaching?

Well, he probably just wants to get it over with, and I just want to hear as much of you as I can. How about that?

A very good answer. Rich, tell us about the ministry that you have at Grace Church. First let�s start off with you being an elder, and then we�ll talk about the children�s ministry.

Sure. Well, I am one of the lay elders at Grace Community Church, and I�ve been in that position for, oh, around 15 years ago. I was working with Bill Shannon, who you�ve had on the show before, and in children�s ministry.

Bill was the children�s ministry pastor, among other things, at that point. And I�ve been in children�s ministry for about 25 years now, so Bill worked with me and mentored me and discipled me and then asked me to come on the board at that time.

Well, I don�t know if it was just something similar, just fortune or fate or something, but you became an elder when I left Grace Church, so were those two related? Let�s hope not. All right. Rich and his wife, Karen, have been at Grace for quite some time with their children.

Rich, before we get into the ministry regarding Generations of Grace and the wonderful Sunday School God-centered, Christ-exalting curriculum, give our listeners an inside story of John MacArthur, something behind the scenes, how he acts at an elder�s meeting.

I think some people think that he�s a larger-than-life man, yet he is consistent both behind the scenes and in the pulpit, and do you have any, not inside scoop on MacArthur, but just an interesting story that you could think of since you�re an elder there at the church?

Well, it is interesting that you set it up like that, because he really is the same man that when he�s in the pulpit and when you�re just interacting with him on one-on-one, just a man of very, very high character, high integrity, and it�s really good to see that from your pastor.

The elder�s meetings are really a great time. I call it �John Unplugged� because there�s a portion of every one of our elder�s meetings where we basically give the floor to John and let him just tell us what�s on his mind, what he�s going through that week or that month or whatnot.

And the times are just really, really amazing, and he�s a very profound guy. You know, he packs more into one sentence than a lot of preachers do in a whole hour. And every once in a while, he�ll start talking, and we know, the guys in the room, that he�s going to be on one of these profound riffs, and everybody slowly pulls the pen out of their pocket and gets a piece of paper and starts writing down whatever he�s saying, because we know it�s just gold.

So those are just fun times to be with him and just hear his mind flow out of 40-plus years of ministry, just digest whatever�s going on in the world and make it come out in a real way that you can see things biblically.

Generations of Grace: A Unified, God-Centered Sunday School Curriculum

We�re talking today at No Compromise Radio with Rich Harisik. And Rich, tell us a little bit about Generations of Grace, the Sunday School curriculum at Grace Church. And I have to say up front that I love the program so much and the curriculum that we use it here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

Tell me why, again, I use it. No, no, tell our listeners why they should use it, and what it�s about, the philosophy of ministry, etc.

Sure. Well, you know, a number of years ago, again, this was developed under Bill Shannon�s leadership when he was the children�s pastor, but we, like a lot of churches, were using a lot of different curriculum, and it was not unified.

Everyone was kind of doing what was right in his own mind, and it wasn�t necessarily wrong, but we thought we could do better. So what we did is we developed our own curriculum, we call it Generations of Grace.

It�s a three-year curriculum that goes through the Old Testament historical books, the life of Christ, lessons from Acts, and Revelation. And it�s available to any church that wants to use it. It�s actually used by 1 ,300 different churches and ministries throughout the world.

And we use it for our three-year-old through sixth grade Sunday school classes. And we call it a unified curriculum because we break it up into three different groups, the ages three through five, grades one through three, and then grades four through six.

And each Sunday, the same lesson is taught in each one of those age groups, but we have, obviously, as most churches do, they could have their kids in different classrooms and hear a variety of different Sunday school lessons.

So with this, they�re all hearing the same lessons, and now the parents have the opportunity to interact with all their kids over the same Bible lesson.

Rich, you know what I like? Just to interrupt you just for a second, since, after all, it�s my show and you�ll only hear this at double-speed. Rich, one of the things I love about Generations of Grace is I�ve got kids in different age groups as well, and so they would come home and, you know, what did you learn about at Sunday school?

God. And I�d give them that look with the eyebrow up, Jesus. And once I picked up the program, that is to say the curriculum, and let�s say it was year one, Genesis through Numbers, and the story was God makes a promise to Abraham or whatever it is.

Then I knew that was going to be the same for all the other kids, and so it was very helpful to me to have every kid studying at their own age level, God makes a promise to Abraham.

Yeah, it really is good for that, and actually in our Sunday morning program, we�ll put in what the lesson is and a few key questions that parents can ask to just kind of prompt their kids to do that.

So the material is based on all those books, and we�re using as an element to prepare our teachers, excuse me, our own pastor�s commentary series, the MacArthur Study Bible, and so the quality of the material that we�re trying to cover is obviously consistent with all of that, and really what we find is that it�s a great way to prepare our teachers, and it�s really something that is welcomed by them because it gives the teachers a summary of each lesson, the goals, the specific key truths, and whatnot.

And then it also has a section there that gives the teachers an idea of how to begin the lesson, how to prepare the lesson, how to proclaim the truth of the lesson, as well as the things you would normally see in a Sunday school material with the younger age groups, worksheets, crafts, coloring pages, and that kind of thing.

But basically, probably the big thing is that we teach the whole counsel of God, and it is biblically based and God-centered, and it�s not just something that maybe wants to try to just teach a moral lesson out of a Bible lesson, but the philosophy is that we want to make God big, that we want to feature Christ, we want to feature the gospel in each lesson.

We really see our ministry as a gospel ministry, and each week we want to come alongside parents as they�re holding the hearts of their children, the souls of their children in their hand with the most important thing is to proclaim the gospel to them.

We want to come alongside and do that in a consistent way. I always talk about our ministry as a seed-throwing ministry, and every week we�re throwing the seeds of the gospel out there, and it just so happens that in this age group we don�t necessarily see a lot of proclamations of faith, but that�s fine.

We know that God can and will do that, and we proclaim the truth as if children can understand and believe in the truth of the gospel.

Family Integration, Sunday School, and the Gospel for Children

Rich, when I watch Grace Church and what they do in terms of how they teach the kids at a high level, we�re not trying to say this is the curriculum that we teach the children so that they don�t go to the worship service.

This is an additional Sunday school type of environment before the kids then go to the main worship service with their parents, right? It�s true. It is true. So what about the families that say, �Well, we bought into family integration, and we should be the ones teaching our children, and Sunday school is not in the Bible, and they�re just going to get moralistic lessons there anyway.

Doesn�t Generations of Grace combat that in lots of different ways?

Yeah, I mean, the ministry as a whole, I mean, we�re not forcing people to come here, but you do your kids a great service to, you know, invite and include other people in their lives that are basically going to come alongside of you as a parent and reinforce the truths that you�re proclaiming at home.

And if you want your children to hear the gospel, to have it explained to them and interact with them in a way that they can understand it, that they can apprehend the truths of it, not just merely memorizing Scripture, all that�s good and profitable, but go beyond comprehension, go to apprehension.

You know, Sunday school can be a great place for that. Now, there�s obviously, you know, good and better and best Sunday schools, and so you want to use some wisdom in that, but we believe that Generations of Grace provides at least the backbone for children�s ministries who use it.

Well, what I like about it, it�s developed by elders at Grace Community Church who have been influenced by the preaching of MacArthur, and then you train many of the Sunday school teachers, and so this isn�t some thrown-together deal where we�re trying to babysit and just teach the kids good manners, and so we�re trying to teach them who God is.

And again, Rich, what I love so much is not about the promise that Abraham made with God and how he opened up his heart to God, God�s promise to Abraham, a God-centered, Christ-centered curriculum. And you�ve talked a lot about the gospel so far.

Tell us what is the gospel. Maybe somebody�s listening today and they thought, �Well, I�m supposed to be teaching my kids good manners and don�t point and, you know, no elbows on the table. What is the gospel?

That�s obviously the question to have, and, you know, we�re really trying to get to the heart of our children, and, you know, what we�re trying to do is to prepare their heart to receive that gospel. And that gospel, as we know, it is the good news, and that good news is that first there�s an understanding of who God is, that God is large, he�s in charge, he requires all of us to be holy as he�s holy, and we fall short of that standard just in our own depravity.

And even, yes, your nice little baby, your child, your youngster is a depraved individual. And, you know, we do talk about sin in Sunday school and the need for a Savior because there�s a penalty that comes along with that sin, and that penalty was paid by Christ and affords the believer, those who put their faith in Christ, to have a relationship with God, an eternal relationship, and that�s the hope that they can have that�s accomplished.

As we�re, you know, taping this Easter, it�s based on the resurrection of Christ. As well as we don�t shy away about the responsibility that man has to come under God and to follow him. So there is obviously an aspect of lordship salvation within that, all just pointing all the time to God and his sovereignty.

We�re talking to Richard Harasik, an elder at Grace Community Church. What do you do in the day, by the way? Do you have a day job?

I�m a large utility in the Los Angeles area.

Using Generations of Grace at Home and in Other Churches

All right. We�re talking about Generations of Grace today, a Sunday school curriculum. If I have my website right, Richard, generationsofgrace .com, I think you can order things online. Even if you were a mom or a dad and wanted some help on how to teach the kids Bible at home, couldn�t you use this curriculum for that?

You could. A lot of people do that. There�s even some adult Bible studies that will use the material as well. So that�s the beauty of it. You�re not buying, it�s a low cost because you�re just buying basically access to download the documents at your leisure.

All right. We�ve got a biblically-based curriculum. How does this compete with or differ from, for instance, Desiring God? Do they have the alphabet or something, Attributes of God, ABC? Are you familiar with their program?

You know, I�m not. As you said, this isn�t the only thing that�s out there. I don�t necessarily want to toot my own horn, but I just think it�s great. There�s a number of churches that use it. We have very good feedback from that.

We just think that many people can benefit from it. We don�t make money off it per se, but we think it�s something that people ought to at least take a look in. When you go to that site, you can see some sample lessons there.

We also offer other documents for you and your church in terms of training your leaders as well. So there�s a number of other things that you�re also gaining access to when you sign up.

Evangelizing Children Without Coercing a Profession of Faith

Well, in light of that, I did go online today to the Grace Community Church website and found the article that�s for free called �Evangelizing Children. Richard, I want to talk to you about your family and son in a little bit.

Maybe we�ll have to do that in the second show, but right now let�s talk about evangelizing children. It�s got some pitfalls. I don�t know if you wrote the article or not, but pitfalls in evangelizing children.

Let me just throw one out to you, and I�d like to hear what you say. One of the pitfalls is coercing a profession of faith. Why is that a pitfall when it comes to evangelizing children?

Well, that�s written to parents as much as anybody else, and we see that there�s often a temptation for parents to parent out of fear, meaning that they may not be doing all that they can do to �save� their child or make their child more savable, or what they�re doing somehow caused their children not to place their profession of faith.

So what you�ll have is parents like that, or even well-meaning Sunday school teachers or those that are evangelizing their children to somehow work with the child�s emotion or look for any expression of faith to say, �Yes, you are saved and either check that box off or just find comfort in the fact that your child has done that.

I understand the emotional tug for that, but we understand biblically that in the end it�s God that saves, and salvation is ultimately a matter between God and your child. And in coercing your child, tugging on their emotions or giving them a false assurance of faith, saying, �Oh, remember, you went to that day school camp and you placed your faith when you were four years old.

You are saved will really do disservice to that child. We understand that God is sovereign and it�s always by His grace, and we need to parent out of grace. We need to minister out of grace that it�s God that saves.

We�re called as parents to be a faithful steward of God and faithfully raise our children up in the nurture and admission of the Lord and to really parent our children so that they would have a fear of the Lord that would lead to wisdom, that would lead to salvation.

But the end, as I said, that�s ultimately a matter between them and God and out of God�s love and sovereignty.

Great answer, Richard. It says here in that article, �It is the role of the Holy Spirit, not the parent, to give assurance of salvation Romans 8, 15 -16. Romans 8, yeah. Too many people whose hearts are utterly cold to the things that the Lord believe they�re going to heaven simply because they responded positively as children to an evangelistic invitation having asked Jesus to come into their hearts.

If a child comes to you and says, �I believe in Jesus how is a parent to respond? Let�s say it�s an eight-year-old, �I know I�m a sinner. I ask Jesus in my heart. I believe in Jesus now. How should a parent respond to something like that?

Well, we�d say they would respond, you know, encouragingly. But again, don�t say things and do things and put the child in a position where what you�re saying and how you�re presenting that would be the thing that would give them assurance.

You want to be encouraging. You wouldn�t say things like, �Oh, no, you�re not, because you just did something wrong. You want to be encouraging. And what I tell parents is, okay, at that point, if they are making a profession of faith, then as you now discipline, disciple, raise your children, saying things like, and in a manner such that, okay, you and your sister had this interaction, here�s what the Bible would say a Christian should respond in that situation.

Here�s how somebody that really has been changed would see that they�re sinning, would repent from that, and here�s what the Bible says to do that. So at the same time, you�re not saying you are a Christian.

You�re not saying you�re not. But you�re saying things in such an encouraging way that they see what God�s Word that says. And whether they are truly saved or not, you know, those actually might be seeds of true saving faith, but just not at a mature level.

We don�t know. We just want to be, I use the word encouraging in that, and not to the point where you�re giving, as you said, Romans 8, something only the Spirit should prove to them as their life is borne out over time.

I�m so glad you gave that answer, because that�s what I do.

Probably because you�ve taught me, as well as the other elders at Grace Community Church, to do that same thing. If the kid said, I believe in Buddha, we would discourage that and say that was wrong. But if I believe in Jesus, we�re glad he�s saying that.

Keep believing. I�m so glad you believe. Keep believing, and put a big smile on your face. How about this? Oh, I almost forgot, Richard. I can tell you work with children and children�s ministry, because did you realize you said when you were describing God�s holiness and.

Teaching Children at a High Level Without Dumbing Down the Message

Transcendence that he was large and in charge? I actually stole that from Steve Lawson, but I think it�s just a great quote. Oh, you did. I like that. It�s more.

Sanctified if you stole it from Steve. Richard, tell us a little bit about teaching children in general. We�ve got about three minutes to go or so. Here�s what I�m looking for. People go to Grace Community Church and they hear MacArthur�s preaching, and it�s at a high level.

If you have to pick a grade, maybe it�s at 12th grade or freshman in high school or, I mean, in college or junior in college. Then some people want to then dumb down things because they�re children. Tell us why you should set high preaching levels or teaching the children at a high level and how Generations of Grace can help that if, in fact, that�s what.

They should do. No, they should. There�s a lot of folks a lot more expert in how to teach and methods or whatnot, and they are, by and large, very helpful and useful. Just getting back to the essence and the philosophy, one of our former pastors used to say that the church breeds hypocrites and the world breeds rebels.

In other words, getting along the lines of the previous questions about giving false assurance to your kids, we can easily make hypocrites out of children. Because they memorize a lot, they learn a lot of lessons, they could probably spout back to you more than even that you know as an adult.

They fall back on that as, �Well, I must be a Christian. What we want to do is we want to make the sin in their life look large. We want them to see the impossibility of them coming to Christ, so we don�t hold back on what we teach.

Now, the task is to make it in a way that�s understandable to them. Actually, that is a win to them that they want to be at church, that they want to hear the lesson, that they love to be there, they love to hear the gospel, they love to hear the Bible, they love their Sunday school teacher, etc.

And so there is all those things about teaching and preaching in a way that they can respond to, that has high energy, that most importantly uses the right vocabulary. So if I�m going to preach to kids or teach to them, I would basically put a lesson the same that I would to an adult, and then I would go back through that manuscript or that outline and look for, and I�ve had an experience over time, to know what phrases or words or whatnot that children in that age group probably would not understand.

I can still use those words, but I maybe use one or two extra sentences to explain that word or that concept. And so I always tell my Sunday school teachers, if the children have left the class and you haven�t taught them anything, then you probably haven�t been a Sunday school teacher.

So there is some effort in that, making sure the kids understand. That is excellent advice, because I do the.

Exact same thing. I prepare the same lesson I do for adults to children, but I talk to adults in a different manner. Time has escaped us. Richard Harasik is an elder at Grace Community Church. By the grace of God, I know he would affirm that.

And he is helping in the children�s ministry there, generationsofgrace .com. If you�d like to take a look at that or order it, you can go there. Richard, thank you for your time today on being on No Compromise Radio.

Thanks for having me. God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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