As I survey the Body of Christ around the world, there are two revelations that I believe are needed in this hour: a biblical understanding of suffering, and a biblical understanding of spiritual fatherhood and sonship.
First, we need to recover God’s perspective on trials, persecution, spiritual warfare, and suffering. Much of the Church has been taught how to escape difficulty, but not how God uses difficulty to mature us, strengthen our faith, produce endurance, and prepare us for what He has called us to carry. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in the midst of real pressure and persecution, strengthening and comforting them with the truth that their suffering was not meaningless. His words gave them perspective, endurance, and hope—and I believe those same words are urgently needed for the Church today.
Second, we need a fresh understanding of spiritual fathers and sons. This language can become unhealthy, controlling, or simply strange in certain environments, but when we look at the relationship between Paul and Timothy, we are given a beautiful picture of what genuine spiritual fatherhood and sonship can look like. Through Paul’s letters to Timothy, we see love, trust, correction, encouragement, impartation, responsibility, and the passing of a spiritual inheritance from one generation to another.
In this course, we will journey through 1 & 2 Thessalonians and 1 & 2 Timothy to discover how God uses suffering to form mature sons and daughters, and how healthy spiritual family helps establish believers in identity, endurance, calling, and purpose. We desperately need both realities in this generation: believers who know how to stand in the fire without losing faith, and sons and daughters who know they belong, know who they are, and know how to receive and carry spiritual inheritance.
Course Curriculum
Your Instructor: Josh
I’m excited to be walking through CRO Youth with you, alongside Corey Russell, taking you through our monthly Bible courses, and helping facilitate our live zooms and prayer meetings.
A couple of things about me are: first, I love Jesus with my whole heart. I got radically saved out of a lifestyle of drugs and partying about 10 years ago. I was struggling with suicidal thoughts in April of 2016 when my mom prayed for me and God met me in my lowest moment. I said, “God, if you can use my life for good, I’ll give you everything.” Since then, God has taken me at my word, and I’ve had the privilege of being a full-time missionary over the last 7 years. I’ve been a part of prayer rooms and youth outreaches across America.
I also just married my best friend, and beautiful wife, Emma in June 2026!
If I could sum up my burden for CRO Youth in one verse, it would be Ephesians 3:19, that you would “know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” I want to see our orphaned generation come into the knowledge of how loved and desired they really are, and then to see them equipped to simply live in response to that love all the days of their lives!
