LOST - and not the tv show

I just spent a week at a Baptist church in the town I live in doing a Disciple Now weekend. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's probably better off that way. Sufficient to say it invoves mass amounts of sugar, college students leading Bible study sessions at host homes, crazy games, and a speaker/band or both. For once I was not leading a group, but rather was simply one of the drama crew (I've done a number of these; it's a wonder I've survived). However, it wasn't that difference that prompted me to write this. The noteworthy happening this time around was in my observation of the frustration each of the leaders expressed about their groups. We had this break room, which I seemed to claim as I was not responsible for anyone but myself, and every time someone entered, we went thorugh another round of tears/sighs/screams of frustration and stories of students not paying attention and acting their age - scary stuff, I'll confess. Once or twice, you'd almost get the sensation that we didn't want to be there. This was the hardest part - WE DID. We love those kids, and as I'm writing this from the safety of my home those leaders are still out there with their groups, trying desperately to make a difference. Here is my observation, and its subsequent burden/application:

You cannot disciple the lost.

There, I said it. Burn me at the stake of youth ministry, which seems to hold either pizza or discipleship as its standard. But hearing so many stories of kids not caring about learning about the Bible is beginning to impress upon me a huge need - and it is not for better programs or more fun activities/retreats/enter-your-youth-ministry-idea-here. Rather, it is the power of two things: prayer and relationships. Prayer - I literally sat in a room full of young people and for the first time realized that the statistic that says 80-92% of students who enter college will fall away from the church, never to return, may be more correct than we realize. We, no I, must be on my face for the youth in my own church and the up-and-coming generation of young people as a whole. Only 4% of my peers (18-26 year olds) go to church - and we were the generation that churches spent millions on. We must pray for awakening in the hearts of millions of young people. Secondly, we must do something about reaching them. Standing in a room full of lost kids was scary; it's very different from standing in a room full of lost college students. There's a feeling that something isn't right, that somehow these kids have been robbed of their childhoods, of their innocence. We must be there for them - relationships. THE RELATIONSHIPS WE MAKE WITH STUDENTS MUST MATTER TO US.

I was part of a generation that experienced and rejected almost every attempt at youth ministry, from pizza crusades to concerts to huge weekends and camps to emotional guilt-trips. Look at us now. If the up-and-coming generation is worse, then we have a problem. No amount of money or "cool" will reach these kids - only Jesus, and Jesus though us.

true religion is this...

I recently heard a sermon over at www.722.org about religion - how we have this idea that we somehow have to impress God, prove to Him that we love Him, or pay Him back for the cross...all things we can't do. I like the speaker's use of the word religion in discribing this complex, but as I surf the web tonight, I am reminded of something we as Christians VERY often forget about our faith - the true meaning of religion.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

"The Spirit of the Soverign Lord is on me, because the Lord has annointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness the blind." Isaiah 61:1

What is true religion? It is a lifestyle that accomplishes the things above: bringing mercy, healing, joy, and freedom to those in need. Now, some organizations are good at doing this, but lack Christ as their center. I'n not talking about them. Rather, this is TRUE religion: bringing those things to people as a tangible example of the love of Christ. When Jesus was on this earth, he healed, set free, and brought newness of life and purpose. When will the church do likewise?

Yes, I acknowledge that the church does much in the name of 'social justice'...but much is not enough. As long as one child is lost, without family, food, or Christ, how can we sleep at night? We must rise up and be the picture of Christ we were always supposed to be.

Check out these links for places to be shocked, changed, and to make a difference:
www.invisiblechildren.com
www.savedarfur.org