Revolution (Grace Vineyard Youth Group)

    This is a reprint from my Myspace.

 

    One of my favorite parts of working in ministry with teens is seeing them involved in the actual work of running the ministry.  They particularly gravitate toward this whenever the work seems especially fun, dangerous, or requiring great power.  When teens show up hours before our Wednesday night program and come in on the days after in order to help it really makes me proud to be their pastor. They often do this out of duty, but I try hard to make it more than just monotonous labor.  Recently, when some students showed up on Wednesday afternoon to help, we started to play a game.  Pastor Bob Oliver even joined us.  Now, to some it might have appeared as if we were just goofing off when we could have been working.  But it was actually a spiritually significant time: a time of bonding that was deeply valuable. 

  In church ministry we have a tendency to want to make everything very serious.  When we see the world as only a matter of fighting a dark evil with the holy we  lose the ability see the lighter side of life.  We so often fail to sit and enjoy, smile, and laugh.  The world looks in and sees us as staunch and protectionist against all that we feel as wrong with the world. We are too frequently defined by what we stand opposed to more than by what we stand for.

  Of course, there are two sides to every coin.  We do live in a world where many seem to have forgotten that the goal of childhood and adolescence is to actually grow up. 

Some have criticized our society of being full of Peter Pans who never seem to accept that adults do have to grow up, and who refuse to see life as anything other than an insatiable quest for enjoyment.  We have lost our way when we turn matters of great importance into simple fun and games (i.e. the way our culture looks at sex).  That criticism has great validity, and our culture seems to be indulging this in our younger generations rather than confronting it.  But this is the opposite of the picture in matters of faith where seriousness is law, and I don't think that is how God intended it.

  Jesus told his followers in Matthew 18:3 that we need to become like little children.  Jesus' point is exactly the opposite of the eternal Peter Pan, and the over-serious.  Little children feel joy and excitement in even the smallest things, and amazement at the greatness of the complex.  It is the religious adults that Jesus had the problems with, and his beef was frequently that they took matters of "religion" too seriously, removed the joy and wonder, and thereby missed the spirit of the matter (Matthew 23:24).

  The Bible also speaks about being a Christian as even a dangerous thing.  In Second Corinthians 11:24-30 Paul equates being a servant of Christ with living completely on the edge.  Somewhere along the line mainstream Christianity seems to have changed that message to,  "be really safe and very serious."  The biblical picture of living for Christ is more the picture of the missionary in the bush than the cloistered monastic.  Teenagers know that.  They know that if this "God" guy is real, he must be powerful, dangerous, and fun.  It has been said "It is a sin to bore students with the gospel," and I pray that we will never teach our youth that life in Christ is boring.  I remember how I thought of God when I was a child.  I wanted to please God, but I also told Him jokes at night, and called to Him when I was scared. I pray that I inspire that in our students.  God isn't just rules and reasons why He is mad at us.  In Him is joy, awe, and wonder.  Living in Christ should be fun, and dangerous, and powerful.