Soft and fluffy faith
“Is there a young person in your school that sits on their own during lunch time? God wants you to connect with that young person.”
Who’s heard something like this before, either in a sermon/talk or an altar call/response? I tell you, if I had a dollar for every time I heard this type of a challenge given during a youth meeting … then I’d be a rich man by now!
Please don’t get me wrong, of course we need to be connecting with those on the margins in our schools; that is exactly what Jesus would be doing! But I’m starting to get so tired of what I call “Marshmallow Christianity”. It’s pink, soft and fluffy, and whilst it tastes good at first, after a few mouthfuls it leaves you with a sick feeling in your stomach.
Niceness doesn’t cut it
Shouldn’t the call to be a disciple of Jesus look a little more radical than just befriending the lonely kid in your school? And often we struggle to even do this! What if Jesus told you to go and befriend Dennis Ferguson, now that’d be a little more costly wouldn’t it?
How often do we reduce the radical Gospel (Good News) of Jesus – which calls for the complete turning upside down of our lives/world – to a set of ‘nice ideas’ and ‘good principles’ that help us to be ‘nice guys’?
How often do we fail to raise our standards to meet Jesus, but instead lower his to meet ours?
Don’t agree with me? In Matthew 19:21, Jesus gives us the instruction to sell everything we have and give it to the poor. Do you know any Christian who actually lives like this?
Forget comfort
“Well, I may not know much about God, but I have to say we built a pretty nice cage for him” (Homer Simpson, after building a church).
I have met young people who feel God calling them to take part in some of the local mission training opportunities we offer at Edify, only for them pull out because their ‘loving parent’ stops them from going because they believe it is too dangerous for them. Since when was the Christian faith ever meant to be about safety and comfort?!
So much of Scripture in fact says the complete opposite – check out the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), or Romans 8:36!
This extract from a recent article on CNN puts it brilliantly:
Your child is following a “mutant” form of Christianity, and you may be responsible.
Dean says more American teenagers are embracing what she calls “moralistic therapeutic deism.” Translation: It’s a watered-down faith that portrays God as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem.
Dean is a minister … [and] argues that many parents and pastors are unwittingly passing on this self-serving strain of Christianity.
She says this “impostor” faith is one reason teenagers abandon churches.
“If this is the God they’re seeing in church, they are right to leave us in the dust,” Dean says. “Churches don’t give them enough to be passionate about.”
It’s time to engage
I challenge us all – as young Salvationists – to recapture the radical fullness of the salvation Jesus offers us. He came to not just to save us from our sin, but from mediocrity and luxury as well!
Let’s not be a Salvation Army at peace, busy playing ‘war games’ and polishing our weapons; let’s be a Salvation Army at war, engaged in the thick of the fight against sin and darkness!
Leaders: challenge your young people to take risks for the Kingdom of God, and then support them in it!
Young people: don’t be afraid to fail as you step out into the extreme places/spaces that Jesus will lead you.
Head forward with action
Below are some great places to start!
- The 40 Hour Famine just went by but that doesn’t mean you’ve missed the boat. Sign up online and do it with your youth/school group. See who can go the longest without food and raise even more money for kids in poverty overseas.
- Sleep outside with your mates in support of Australia’s 32000 homeless youth.
- Check out www.findyourmission.com.au, a cool new site that’s all about ways to get your hands dirty in Salvation Army mission.
- Don’t just sit with that lonely young person, but shout them lunch too, then invite them to your place after school to play guitar hero!
This is a miniscule list; please add more in the comments below as you dream / do them! To finish though, let me leave you with a beautiful quote from one of the heroes of our faith, who understood that Christianity was hardly a marshmallow faith, but a call to surrender all, even if that meant your life.
”He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose” (Jim Elliot).
