Hundreds of young people sat orderly in the school assembly hall and even the teachers seemed happy for once. The crowd were listened intently to an engaging presentation which was being passionately delivered as the atmosphere became more electric by the minute. The gospel was being shared with relevance. This was the stuff that Christian ministry newsletters were born for. Yet right in the middle of this seemingly perfect moment, I sort of lost the plot. I had heard this message many times before. Except I wasn’t sure if I believed it anymore. And I was the one who had organised the event.
Forget the context for a minute; this was not about big vs small. Forget the stylistic debates about how we get our message across in a relevant way. This was about something deeper. It was about the message itself. I realised I had lost my faith in the content of this gospel that I was working so hard for young people to hear.
I suddenly wondered if we were only telling part of the story. I started to feel this was less like good news and more like slightly average news at best. Were we revealing a Jesus who was nothing more than a transaction to get us to heaven? Did our theological answers, whilst they were being delivered with succinct logical arguments, have anything to do with the questions young people were dealing with before they walked in the room? Were young people walking out the door having agreed with the principles, but missing the point altogether?
I am continually intrigued at the kind of questions young people actually ask when they are given space for exploration, and we don’t just expect them to listen to our pre-rehearsed spiel
The experience of losing my faith in that gospel has been shaping my work with teenagers ever since. Time may have passed since that day, but am I alone in thinking this kind of gospel is still being shared across our nation from our youth clubs to our stadiums? Maybe we need to ask ourselves some tough questions again for the sake of the next generation.
I know that we are called to preach the gospel with our lives, but I still believe that we are meant to share it with our mouths. Yet why does our definition of sharing the gospel so often mean we have to tell young people everything we know about God all at once? Jesus didn’t feel the pressure to share everything in one go because he knew he was part of a bigger story. Jesus was an expert in answering questions in a way that gave his followers a whole set of new ones. The disciples were never spoon fed. They were often left in a place where they had to wrestle with barriers, mystery and myths before they had their breakthrough. Yet does our criteria for youth ministry success mean that we are not happy unless we have sealed the deal ourselves?
What kind of questions are we trying to answer anyway? If we look at most of our evangelistic resources you might be forgiven for thinking that today’s teenagers probably aren’t asking the kind of questions we as the Church want them to ask. We want young people to ponder the madman, lunatic and liar paradox, because C.S Lewis gave us a pat answer for that one. But the truth is that young people’s starting points are rarely the same as ours. What would happen if we listened to young people without assuming prior knowledge and stopped ourselves from responding with Christian jargon?
I recently returned from a school trip to Mexico where we were building houses for local people trapped in poverty. Every night, after a hard day’s work, we would sit around the camp fire chatting about life, justice, faith and everything in-between. In moments like these, I am continually intrigued at the kind of questions young people actually ask when they are given space for exploration, and we don’t just expect them to listen to our pre-rehearsed spiel.
Is our gospel story too small? I love what Phil Knox pointed out recently on this blog when he said “in a Google world, the gospel is less ‘four points’ linear and more encapsulated in a story.” The gospel is an invitation to a journey, not just an invitation to put a hand up in a meeting. The gospel can rarely be summed up in a few short tweetable catchphrases because it is part of such an epic story. What if our big events started to point to a bigger story again? What if our small conversations helped young people take smaller steps towards understanding Jesus?
We need a gospel where Jesus is revealed as a rescuer, a role model and a revolutionary.
Our good news stories needs to explore the whole of Jesus’ life not just the fact that he came and died. Of course the cross is still the crux of the issue, but we must never forget that what happens between Christmas and Easter is vital to the message. Jesus lived a life that shows us a new way to be human. He is actually worth following. The gospel is good news when it reveals Jesus as a role model. This kind of gospel invites us to change our identity.
This epic story invites us to journey with a Jesus who offers second chances, fresh starts and freedom. The gospel is good news when it reveals Jesus as a rescuer. Yet the trouble with a gospel narrative that only deals with our personal problem of sin, is that we forget that Jesus came to invite us to play our part in a world changing revolution of hope and justice. The gospel is good news when it reveals Jesus as a revolutionary. This kind of gospel invites us to change our purpose.
So whilst we are debating about redefining our youth ministry for the future can we please re-examine our gospel again? After all, the last thing we want to do is to work so hard to become part of a young person’s story, only to tell them half of ours.
Dave Boden is the Strategic Lead for Christian Ethos at a chain of UK Secondary Schools. He also leads Build Hope Mexico and is the creator of Kleer Series, a video based curriculum that enables young people to explore spirituality from a Christian Perspective. Follow him on twitter at @davemboden
