Discipleship – Peter Gowesky

In Family & Parenting

How to Raise the Next Generation with Faith that Lasts

May 12, 2025 No Comments

Whether you’re raising toddlers, mentoring teenagers, or simply loving the kids God’s placed in your life—one thing is clear: the next generation matters. A lot. And not just to you, but to God.

You don’t have to be a perfect parent to raise kids who love Jesus. But you do need to be present. You need a plan. And you need to realize that what you’re building today is shaping someone else’s tomorrow.

That’s what this week’s message was all about: Raising the Next Generation. And before you check out thinking this doesn’t apply to you—stay with me. Because this isn’t just for moms and dads. This is for anyone who’s ever influenced a child, coached a team, served in Hope City Kids, or prayed for a student walking through hard things.

Here’s the truth: If we don’t intentionally pass on our faith, it won’t pass on at all.

Judges 2:10 tells us that a generation grew up who “knew neither the Lord nor what He had done for Israel.” That should shake us. Because we are always one generation away from forgetting God if we don’t speak up and live out the truth.

Your influence is building something. The only question is—what are you building?

Proverbs 14:1 reminds us that “The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” Your words, your prayers, your presence—they’re shaping your family’s spiritual legacy right now. Every time you show up, every bedtime prayer, every “Jesus loves you” matters.

Here’s your encouragement today: You don’t need to be perfect. But you do need to be intentional. Make time to talk about God. Speak life into your kids. Correct with grace and lead with love. They’re being discipled—by someone. Let it be you.

Let’s make this practical.

Take five minutes today and ask yourself:

What kind of adult am I praying my child (or the next generation) becomes?

Write a one or two sentence mission statement for how you want to raise or influence the next generation.

Check out the whole message here:

In Faith in Real Life

What kind of a mist are you?

September 5, 2013 3 Comments

The other day Pete Wilson, pastor at Cross Point Church in Nashville TN, blogged over on his site about a mist worth celebrating. Here is an excerpt from his post.

This morning I was reading in James 4 and was reminded of this important truth.

James 4:14 “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

It’s true. We are but a “mist”. In other words, life is short. We’re here and then we’re gone. I could see how, at first glance, this verse might be a bit depressing. But for me it’s motivating.

James 4:14 — My dad and I at Old Westbury Gardens

I couldn’t agree with Pete more. I think about some of the people in my life who have been incredibly life changing to me. I wrote about my dad here, and I spoke about him here. My dad had an enormous impact on my life. I am who I am today because of the way that he loved Jesus and the way that he loved me. I think about some of the people in my life who have been in and out of it only for a few short years. Friends like Chris, & Bob who have mentored me and helped shape my life. There are so many others.

It is easy to think about all of the people who have had an eternal impact on your life. What may be a bit more difficult to think about is what kind of a mist are you becoming? Or what I mean is, who are you becoming, and how are you impacting the lives of others? Do you have someone in your life who you are building into, encouraging, and loving on? If not, you should find someone. Do it fast, because as James says, our lives are like a mist, here and then gone.

Let’s make the most of the time that we have!

~Peter

In Spiritual Growth

Scraped Knees= Shepherding Opportunities

May 29, 2012 No Comments

My kids have fallen down- many times. In fact it happened recently. Noah fell and scraped up his elbow pretty badly. When we were trying to bandage it up he said, “IT BURNS LIKE LAVA!” Ah to have the mind of a six year old again…

My kids have made mistakes. They have written on walls, gotten pen on the couch, spilled milk, disobeyed, talked back, and been obstinate. They have found that there is a whole lot of life that they want to explore and boundaries that they want to push.

These are the times as parents that are incredibly hard, right? When your kid is in pain, pain so bad that it can only be likened to “burning like fire”, you want to take that away for them. You wish that you could bear the pain on their behalf so that they didn’t have to feel it. When I watch one of my kids fall, my whole body cringes, not because I am hurting, but because I know that they will be.

It is hard as a parent to watch and experience your children disobey, make poor decisions, and mistakes. If you don’t believe me ask any parent of a teenager, they will tell you it is hard!

These are the moments when parenting is tough.

It is in these moments that parents have to step in and show their children that their is a better way. There is a safer way to get from one side of the pool to the other than by running. There is a reason why we don’t color with markers on the couch. There is a reason why we eat over our plates. All of this is for a reason.

When our children disobey, as parents we have to have the difficult discussion about why obedience is important. We have to discuss why attitude is everything. We have to talk about forgiveness. We must teach our kids how to say sorry. All of these things are important to teach lovingly and graciously to our children.

In the book of Ezekiel, God speaks through the prophet Ezekiel and tells his people that they haven’t been shepherding, or taking care of His people. God reveals the condition of the shepherds heart as well as the condition of the flock. Neither one is doing very well.

You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock. Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the disease you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered.

~Ezekiel 34:3-5

God speaks through Ezekiel and is trying to get the attention of those who are taking care of God’s flock, or God’s people. This passage is challenging to me both as a parent and as a pastor. It makes me ask the question, am I caring for the people that God has entrusted to me?

What about you? I don’t care if you are a pastor, or a parent. A father, or a friend. Are you lovingly guiding and caring for those that God has placed in your life? How do you help your kids, friends, etc… know that you care?

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Wipers Are For Wimps!

September 7, 2011 No Comments

It’s true. I’m more of a Rain-x guy. I prefer to have the water bead up and just move off the window. Wipers make so much noise! They never seem to be timed right, and overall there is something wimpy about turning them on. When Tiffany and I are driving together in the rain I can tell that it is time to turn on the wipers when she gets a little squirmy in her seat. It is a bit of a game, see how long I can go without turning on the wipers.

I was on the phone with my mom yesterday and she told me that she used her wipers for the first time yesterday since May! Take that…

Now, she lives in the Dallas, Texas area (Outside of the arms of Irene). They are experiencing a really dry season right now, which is actually quite dangerous. Fires are erupting and causing intense damage in their region.

The northeast region of the United States has received more rain in the last few weeks than has been on record for a long time. The one thing that I notice about all of this rain is that it invades every space exposed to it. In our region, the rain has been so abundant that our ground is saturated and cannot handle anymore rain. The excess water is flowing right over the ground, not being able to penetrate it anymore, filling up our streams, creeks and rivers. We are experiencing high levels of water and flooding like we don’t typically see.

While this can be a terribly devastating physical reality, in another sense it is a beautiful picture of the spiritual reality of a relationship with God.

What if there was no layer of our life that God’s power, conviction and grace didn’t invade? What if the soil of our lives was saturated with the presence of God? What if our lives were so saturated that there was no where for the power and presence of God to go in your life BUT to spill over into the lives of those around you? What would the trickle down effects look like?

I want that. I want that for myself, and I want that for you too.

Can you imagine having a relationship with God like this? How do you think this would change our Churches and our cities?

Wipers are for wimps! Embrace the rain, and ask God for more of it in your life!

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Crazy Runner

March 5, 2009 1 Comment

“He’s so silly”, as my 2 year old Grace would say. “That guy is so silly.” Yesterday morning I was on my way to guys Bible Study and I decided to stop and pick up some donuts and chocolate milk. Now let me give you a time stamp for when this was all happening at. This was at the early hour of 5:55. IN THE MORNING! Seriously folks… what is wrong with me? Who plans a Bible study that early? Anyway, as I am pulling out of Dunkin Donuts, I see this guy in spandex and a coat tricked out with reflective tape running towards me. Now, at this hour in the morning my mind immediately thought, there must be a fire somewhere and he is running to get help. I mean this guy wouldn’t possibly be running for exercise out in the mind numbing, bone chilling, pet debilitating cold. (Yes, It was that cold!) But sure enough, I realized that an outfit like that could only mean one thing.

HE’S CRAZY.

Sure enough I ended up being right.

Or at least so I thought.

In my mind… “What is wrong with this guy? Why in the world would he be running this early in the morning. There must be something seriously wrong with this guy! He’s crazy.”

But then I noticed something else as I loosened my seat belt… And drove off with a dozen donuts in my car. (Tubby)

He was tall and skinny.

Hmm… His discipline was mildly inspiring. Mostly still crazy in my mind, but inspiring.

It wasn’t long after this that I began to think about how this is representative of my spiritual life. I will so often say I want to be a spiritual giant like my Dad, or I want to know God’s word like the back of my hand. Yet, I am not always willing to go “crazy” in order to attain that goal. Shame on me! “Stay round peter, don’t run… It’s too cold.” That’s what my mind says. My flesh says, “your good enough, don’t read today. You can do it on your own, you don’t need God.”

BOGUS! I am not good enough, I need to read more! I can’t do it on my own. I need God in everything I do. It’s high time I don some spandex, and hit the pavement in the bitter cold at 5:55 AM. Or at least spiritually speaking. And, maybe I’ll trade the spandex for jeans…

Let’s go people. What do you think? Crazy? You, me, that guy? It’s time to become uncomfortable with the way we are, and move towards who God wants us to be! Time to strive. Time to long for more. Time to step up to the plate and man up…

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Reflect Christ

January 10, 2009 1 Comment

Have you realized yet that you interact with hundreds and thousands of people a year? Dependent upon your job, you may meet and greet several thousand people a year. If you live in a neighborhood, or development. If you live in what we have commonly called a town, city, or village… likely you will run into people. And here’s the deal. People are messy. People are really dirty. They have problems. They have issues! BOY DO THEY HAVE ISSUES! Everyone has issues but me. (Ever find yourself saying that?) What do we do with all of these dirty, messy, smelly, people filled with issues when we run into them. You know, the kind that barge into your life with all kinds of problems. How do you and I handle these moments? What is it that we will do?

We have started a new teaching series here with both of our groups, Junior High & Senior High. We’re calling it “Reflect Christ”. We are looking at how Christ showed compassion on the people He found surrounding Him. There were thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of interactions that Jesus had with people. The question of a good disciple should be, when I run into people how should I interact with them? Better yet, how would my Rabbi, my discipler, my Lord, my teacher interact with this person? How can I reflect the teacher? How can I reflect Christ? We are looking at three different examples of how Christ dealt with three different groups of people. They are:

The Person I don’t know
The Person I know
The Person I know the best

What do you think compassion really is? How can we show compassion to those around us? Whoever they may be… No matter what category they fit into.

I just can’t stop thinking about this question: “How are we going to deal with those we find ourselves surrounded with?”

Thoughts?

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Lets do this together

December 5, 2008 1 Comment

This morning I was driving in my car with Noah and Grace in tow behind me. We were driving from the house to the church. Today was going to be a special day! We were going to play at the church for the morning. We brought their bikes and we were going to play! It was going to be fun. We all willingly put our coats and shoes on, and we headed to the car with excitement on our faces. ALL OF US! So, we get in the car and something magical happened. We were descending the hill on West Street passing by Doyle Elementary school and I noticed what was happening in the back seat behind me. We were having a little school lesson.

This is the conversation I heard.

Noah- “Grace. Say tree.”

Grace- “Twee”

Noah- “Good job Grace. Say car.”

Grace- “Kar”

Noah- “Good job Grace. Say Baby Doughnut.” {In our family munchkins are known lovingly as Baby doughnuts…}

Grace- “Bebe Dowgnuts”

All of a sudden it hit me… Shouldn’t this be what the Christian life is all about? Shouldn’t we be helping each other grow in our faith? Shouldn’t we be there living life along side of each other helping our peers out when they are struggling? In this situation, there was no paid teacher, there was no professional. Believe me, Noah has lightyears to go in his sentence structure and word pronunciation. However, for whatever reason, he saw a need in his sisters life. He stepped up to the plate and was there to help Grace develop in her speech, and her abilities to communicate. I was one proud dad.

This is what we are trying to do at Youth Group. We are purposefully leaving 10 minutes at the end of every evening for students to spend that time with each other, praying, talking, counseling, laughing, and crying. This has everything to do with helping each other.

I’m a pastor. True statement. However, I don’t want to be the only one leading students. I want to see youth leaders leading students. I want to see students leading students. There will be much greater growth in church’s, youth groups, small groups, and sunday schools if we would work together and follow the example of a 3 year old. What if… What if we practiced this?

What do you think? Can you be apart of this type of a movement? Who do you think that you can be reaching out to? Or, have you had anyone do this in your life?

What do you think?

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

A Disciple of what?

April 20, 2008 2 Comments

This morning at church we are talking about discipleship, and our Pastor, Chris Sutton, reminded us that Jesus wasn’t the only individual to have disciples. He mentioned that John the baptist had disciples as well, and several other guys. We were reminded that to be a disciple really means to be a learner, or someone that is continuing to learn a way, belief, or process.

Well, this made me think. And my good buddy James Chester who blogs at “wakeupsleeper.” wrote in one particular post about worshippers. Check it out, it will make you think. Well, after thinking about worshippers, and then thinking about what we were learning this morning I believe that every single person is a disciple. I think that each one of us is a disciple of something, someone, or some idea. We are striving and longing to be better at baseball, basketball, sudoku, arm wrestling, polka dancing, or whatever hobby you may have. Some of us out there are disciples of the corporate ladder. They are learning what to wear, what to say, and how to adjust our lifestyles in order that we may climb up the next rung on that ladder. Some of us are disciples of MTV and mainstream media. We are learning again what to wear, phrases to say that makes you apart of the club, lifestyle adjustments, and much more. The illustrations are endless. We could apply it to anything from ice fishing to Buddhism.

So the question is, what or who are you a disciple of? Are you truly following hard after God, in order that you may become more like Jesus? Or are we working harder at rising up the success ladder of life? You know, getting the babe, the ring, the job, the cars, the house, the 2.45 kids, the beach house, the nanny, the secured offshore account, and whatever else that we as americans call success.

Maybe it’s time that we truly focus on learning more about Christ, and what He has done for us. Maybe it’s time that we took our eyes off of what our culture is telling us to believe and place our focus on becoming a true disciple of Jesus Christ. You know, a learner and a follower.

Thoughts?