Read your Bible, Go to Church, and Always Remember to say “Jesus”

Have you ever been stuck inside a bubble? I mean literally, you scrunched inside a 4 foot bubble. I was about 8 when I had my stuck-inside-a-bubble experience. It was at the mall near my house. There was this massive indoor playground with tunnels and jut-outs and ropes and slides and everything an 8-year-old could ever want in a playground. It was a child’s miniature paradise. And when you’re 8 years old, everything seems a thousand times bigger than it actually is. That is how an 8 year old can get completely lost in a playground half the size of a basketball court. It sure doesn’t help when the main focal point of the whole maze of tunnels and tubes is a big clear ball in the center: the bubble. Every single kid made it his or her personal mission to make it to the bubble. I too wanted to get to the bubble, but unlike every other child, I couldn’t find the way. Oh as a sidenote, you’ll probably figure out quite quickly that I am not normal. Ok, continuing. After what seemed to be an eternity (but in actual time, probably only 15 minutes) I stumbled into this strange pathway that I had not been down before. I bent, twisted and jumped through hoops to get through this jungle of plastic and Plexiglas. And all of the work paid off. I was finally there: the bubble.

I was completely overwhelmed with excitement and accomplishment and satisfaction at the fact that I had finally made it into the bubble. For the first five minutes I just sat there in the middle of the bubble in proud victory over the eternal caverns I had overcome. Soon after, some other kids had found their own way into the bubble and we all rejoiced together at our accomplishment. Not too long after this, another group of kids came back to the bubble and attempted to force their way back into the bubble which was once there. In the span of about 2 seconds, all of my feelings of excitement dramatically transformed to panic and desperation. I needed to get out of the bubble. Now.

By this time the bubble was far beyond the limits of human capacity. I wanted desperately to get out of the bubble. To say it was no longer comfortable would be a monstrous understatement. I pushed and fought my way through the bombardment 4-foot’ers and after a little less than forever, I finally made it out of the bubble. I cannot describe to you the sense of disappointment and failure I felt leaving that bubble. I felt excluded, defeated, alone. And I knew the last thing to ever happen would be me getting back into the bubble. There was no chance of that.

And yet I wonder, is my experience as an 8 year old in a massive indoor jungle gym really that different from the churches all around us? If we stop and think about it, does our maturity as members of the body of Christ reflect better on our calling as a human being, or maybe better on that of an immature 8 year old? Or, dare I say, the eight year old could teach us lessons? But even if we were taught by the eight year old child, we wouldn’t listen. We would be too busy in our own bubbles we have created. I mean really, we know everything there is to say and do anyways, right?

Consider with me the foyer of the church. You walk in the doors a few minutes before the service and everyone, absolutely everyone is standing in little pockets of circles. At the drop of a dime they could join hands and start twenty different games of ring-around-the-rosie. But something like that would require effort, and for sure we wouldn’t want that. Who brings effort to church? That’s for after church when you’re making your 12 topping pizza before the big game. No, the circles would continue to be circles and you would only be able to join one if you had made the twists and turns and jumped through hoops to get there. The funny thing is, that’s not even the beginning of the bubble we create. The real trick is understanding the unwritten rules.

Rule number one: Read your bible.
Just read your bible. Open the pages and read words. If you can understand what the words are saying, bonus.

Rule number two: Go to church.
Make sure you come to the main weekend service, and the more you can come during the week, the better.

Rule number three: always remember to say “Jesus”
If there is ever a deep, theological challenge, a main point from the sermon, or basically any question asked in the church, the answer is Jesus. It doesn’t matter what you really think about the issue or question, the answer is Jesus.

Final Rule: We don’t want to offend you.
If anything here or anything said inside the church offends you, feel free to disregard it. We don’t want to offend you.

Of course, I have placed a high level of Sinicism into this thought. I have done this, not to express how I actually feel about the church, but to exaggerate and prove a point. I want us all to understand that the constructs and functions of our churches are not functioning the way they should… and perhaps the trouble we have with our students and congregation giving pat answers to the question, “what is God saying to you” is really a reflection of the “Jesus” bubble we focus all of our attention on creating. And we do such a good job of creating this select, exclusive group that only the qualified few will recognize this Christian bubble as the “Red Letter Bubble”.

Perhaps the red letters of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are not meant to strengthen the walls of the exclusive, comfortable fellowship of believers, but rather meant to challenge our thoughts, break down our human regulations and heal our paralysis which was brought by self-imposed comfort and complacency. And then, in a very real sense, the red letters which our Savior was dying to say to us might come and bring transforming life renewal.

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
2 Corinthians 5:14-15

What might be possible if this verse became the defining reality of our lives?

The Bitter Sweet Problem

Although I haven't been involved in youth ministry for an extremely long time, there is still one thing that consistently comes up and is becoming to frustrate me more and more. Time and time again when doing a bible study or a talk or anything with some sort of spiritual emphasis, a question will be thrown out there. A question asked to see if the youth are picking up what you are throwing down. The question will often be sound something like this "So, how do you think we can apply what has been talked about in your life?" Maybe it looks like that, maybe the question is phrased a different way, but the person leading the study or doing the talk will say something along those lines to see if the youth are grasping the idea that is being discussed. The person who asks this question seems to almost enjoy punishment, because without a doubt the next few words that come out of the youth's mouths will frustrate and sometimes leave the leader feeling crushed. "Read your Bible", "Pray" and "Go to Church". There you are, the classic Sunday School answers that go right beside "God" and "Jesus". The very words that crush me every time I think I have said something of value. These answers generally come from the students who have been gone to church their entire life and have grown up in a christian house hold. These are the students that have their personal relationship with Christ and you are trying to help them live a life that is fully devoted to Christ.

The frustration comes because these students, who are generally Christian's, are generally the most frustrating to work with. There are ones who don't have a Christian background but they are the ones who are asking the questions but also trying to find the answers. They are not comfortable with where they are in life and are trying to figure it out. On the other hand, there is a usually a group of youth that are comfortable with where they are and don't want to be moved from their state of content, this is the frustrating group. What's frustrating is that they are right and they know it. Reading your Bible, praying and going to church are going to generally help with spiritual things. Everything within me wants to tell them they are wrong because you know full well that they are not getting the point, they are just saying it because it's right. And sometimes it doesn't even matter what the answer is, or whether they have even thought about it, they figure they don't have to think anymore cause they have figured out how to stay content. A question I always find myself wanting to ask these youth when those phrases make their inevitable appearance is "when was the last time you actually read your Bible then" or "when was the last time you actually prayed?" Pray is an answer that is tossed out there for a lot of questions but when it comes to a time when you actually want someone to pray, everyone in the room is pretty quick to not make eye contact and try and look invisible. These are not problems that are in just one specific group, I have been involved in a few groups and have experienced this in all of them.

So how do I help move these students away from their comfortable lives of content? How do you get them to actually live the very applications that they consistently say they should be living. Apparently I enjoy the pain and frustration of it, because this is one of the things that drives me to continue working with them, trying to help transform my life and theirs. It is in fact the bitter sweet problem to have. How do I help bring the Word of God alive to them. Another reason why I care so much about this, is because I used to be one of the youth 6 or so years ago. I used to be content in my faith and not really care to move out of that state. It has only been within the last few years that I really started to understand why we do these things like reading our Bible, praying and going to church. It has only been recently that verses such as Jeremiah 31:33 or Colossians 1:27 (shocking I use those two verses, eh?) have revolutionized my world. So my question: How do I do ministry because off this? On one hand it is great to see youth coming up from the church and being solid in their faith, but on the other hand too often I see the same kids staying content in it.