Category: Faith Life

Navigating the parking lot, I had to be careful to avoid a teenager. Youth groups can spread out like honey on a counter. As we drove past a few more churches on the way home, those parking lots were also full of youths, enjoying the cool evening. It’s a positive sign that young people are still attending midweek church services.

I do wonder what the outcome will be, however. Barna Group has conducted some research on current trends in youth groups and the outcomes for those as they age (see them here and here). I’d like to say that the trend is upward or positive, but I know that it’s not. And, more importantly-and often not connected in research-is how both the home and community attitudes about faith and connectiveness have changed.

When I was growing up, I was a generation of children that were the direct result of my parent’s generation. That is to say: the entire family, if they were believers, threw themselves into church. They attended, participated, gave of their time, talent, and resources, and generally cared about all things because they saw the church as an extension of all things Bible. That means that they saw the church as a beacon of hope, help, and healing. It was also a place to come to gather to refresh, renew, recharge, learn, grow, and place value in something that was, by choice, a part of the individual life: faith in Christ. It wasn’t uncommon for us to be at church several hours a week, several days a week. I did homework in pews, slept across pews, danced in pews, wept in pews; I made crafts, formed friendships, memorized scriptures, and became part of an extended family. Even today there are people I can still speak to, thanks to social media, who knew me as a baby and small child, who can share memories of me, who spoke into my life, taught me Sunday school, and generally helped me come to love church. I looked forward to the day that I’d be able to become part of the youth group. It was, in a way, a coming of age portion of a life of faith. They were able to do things en mass that we younger ones just didn’t do.

When my parents were growing up, there were basically two paths in front of children: the wrong path, and the right path. Granted there were some nebulous gray areas that today we have come to accept, and for which there is no shame. Generally, however, all of life came to a halt for church attendance and participation. In fact, my parent’s union is a direct result of their engagement in youth group. The entire focus of youth was spelled out in their name: Christ’s Ambassadors. I don’t know for sure if all youth groups in the movement had the same name; it seems today all youth groups have to have a unique-to-them name. But, they were called “C.A.’s” and had “C.A.” events and I’m guessing that it might have applied to the entire movement.

I like the name because it is the epitome of what all believers should be. The church’s mission is to be an extension of all things Bible, and in that we are, in fact, Christ’s ambassadors to the world. We do hope that we can welcome in more souls to the kingdom of God. Even though I know their youth group had fund raising events like car washes, I know more that they had services where their lives were impacted for Christ. So many came out of this one church who became missionaries, pastors, entrepreneurs, teachers, community organizers, and all of them using their faith in Christ to impact their community. In fact, one of the strongest impacts on my life was a couple that were servants of every type imaginable. They were Sunday school teachers, participated in the choir, served as ushers, helped at many events, went into the community and served in the jails and prisons, visited the shut ins, helped the elderly, and so much more.

My generation, however, became infected by culture in such a slow way, that it was something that took place without resistance. Like a tire with a slow leak, it wasn’t obvious until we were hobbling along. We might’ve been told that we missed out on greatness or opportunity, so we attempted to give our children more time with sports, arts, or other interests. We carved out specific time for family activities, not once a month or special occasions, but weekly. We bought more televisions and learned that entertainment was “good” and okay; we flooded our homes with books, magazine subscriptions, and computers; we came to value new inventions of entertainment such as Walkmans, cell phones, iPods, Gameboys, handheld games, car entertainment systems, DVD players, Wiis….; we became “obsessed” with things: jewelry things, shoe things, gadgets, fidgets, widgets, and inventions. Suddenly our brains were hardwired to be entertained and waiting for the next adrenaline or dopamine fix. We grew to have a 2.4 second search response time.

Now our kids are in that age range to have their children, and some have had children. They aren’t willing to commit to hours in church. Many don’t know what travail means, or long-term commitment, sacrifice, determination, tenacity. Church is entertainment. The songs have to entertain. The sermon has to entertain. Churches that don’t have mood lighting for worship aren’t palatable. Forget skinny jeans…

Youth spill out into parking lots because an hour inside is about enough. And I get it. Spending all day in school is definitely a challenge. Youth group leaders and pastors want to provide opportunity to engage with teens without overwhelming them with another indoor, strapped to the seat one-dimensional experience. They want youth group to be something to look forward to, not something to loathe. Clearly we have work to do to keep youth looking toward a life of service to the King…

Christ’s Ambassadors were so powerful because they looked to the mature adults and how they experienced the Lord in powerful, encountering services and made that the “right of passage” for the youth. So much so that the youth determined to seek and knock for themselves and have power encounters. Their display of determined seeking made youth group the right of passage for the children. This trickle down effect was what worked. I believe it can still work this way.

In my view mature adults are being swept aside in culture these days in a ploy to devalue wisdom and that is why there are new words to devalue older persons: “Karen” and “Boomer” for starters. There is no room for value sets that were guiding principles for older persons, mainly because guiding principles or being principled is offensive. The distraction of stuff in my generation and the distraction of technology in the previous generation is now being replaced with the distraction of fluid principles; people have become the focus only in a negative way. While we once looked to older people as models and wanted to join with them, and they with us, the elders are now being pushed aside in lieu of younger leaders, thinkers, ideologues, influencers. What is missing from some of these people? Experience.

Spilling out into the highways and byways of society both in person and virtually will be a catalyst for impacting the world for Christ, provided that the individual’s heart is impacted through experience with the King of Kings. I continue to look forward to seeing young people littering parking lots, shopping malls, parks, schools, and other spaces after spending time in youth group. After all, being Christ’s Ambassador is what we’re called to be, and it can only happen when one has Christ. May we ascertain him through encounters. May be look to those with experience for wisdom. May we share liberally with those who will listen. May we teach in all humility. May we watch the youth share Christ as his Ambassadors.

Two years ago we moved into a brand new build. The final walk through was a sprint to the finish line, where we had approximately 20 minutes to go through and note anything that didn’t look as expected, upon which we then drove to the lawyers office to sign on the dotted line. You’d think that would be a red flag moment. Truth be told, it wasn’t. The builder was building quality homes very slowly, and because this was in the initial throws of an unknown virus, we had to exercise extreme caution.

The move in was also fine tuned and fast. For the first time ever we hired a moving company, who arrived with two trucks, seven brawny young men, and the precision of a Swiss watch. Four hours later and the home was full and we could rest.

Within the first week, as I was coming down the stairs, and the sun was filtering angelically through our newly installed blinds, I saw a footprint on our steps. Well, not an entire foot, but rather half of a print, including the toes. It had been installed when the final layer of shellac was painted on the wood treads. No amount of coercion would release the imprint.

We alerted the builder, of course, and had to wait a good six months to have it fixed. Timing was poor, the builder was backlogged with other necessary minor fixes across a few build locations, and then there were protocols in place to slow the process even more. Six months I stared at that print.

My mind wandered as I envisioned exactly what was the cause of this error. It was a right foot. Does everyone lead with a right foot, or does dominance matter? I’m sure the thought of leaving a shoe print was the reason it was there; a sock would likely leave fuzzies. So, why the need to retrace or step just there?

When I was a child we had a daunting task. My dad, being the do-it-yourselfer-to-save-every-penny kind of guy, undertook to paint the exposed wood on our stairs. The stairs also had an iron banister. And……he paid two strong young men in our neighborhood to come over…I can’t believe they actually agreed….to hold said bannister while he painted, so that it could be bolted back down after. Even now I can’t believe we did this.

But because of this type of scenario, my brother and I learned how to navigate all sorts of painted surfaces. When he painted the walls, we would hold on to the bannister and tip toe up the stairs like ninjas. We actually played “ninja” throughout the house. We learned how firmly we could press a surface before a finger print appeared, to my dad’s chagrin. We were determined, and relentless, in ways to circumnavigate each vignette so that we could emerge unscathed, and undetected.

Did this painter understand how to navigate this very sticky situation? I’m not sure. Maybe it was one oversight-we’re allowed those on occasion. Perhaps we have some huge bombastic scenario that took place for which we are not privy. I’m not sure. I do have an intact imagination, though, so I took a stroll down a few potential pathways.

Still, once the builder came out to fix the one stair, it was apparent to us that the second team (second string, or back up option?) had zero idea how to match the first attempt, so that all the stairs looked the same, felt the same. So now we have 15 stairs with a ruddy texture so we don’t slip and fall, and one smooth and shiny stair. I’m not a teenager any longer. I take each step. No skips. I also no longer wear socks on the stairs so I avoid a potentially fatal outcome.

Now this entire situation did also give me time to reflect on how often we may attempt to tiptoe into a situation. We may reconsider and back out, or perhaps we are wanting to double check something, get a better view, retrieve one final thing….and every time we do that, we leave an imprint. It’s clear we were there. How often does the Lord come back in and smooth things over, and whether through an act of forgiveness, mercy, or grace, he covers our steps? What if he, too, leaves that portion of our story smooth, and shiny, and not exactly like the steps before or after?

We may think we are playing ninja and are undetected, but at least one person knows what we’ve done, and where we’ve been.

I kinda like knowing we have a master builder.

When I look back at all my foibles and failures, my eyes well up with tears. I know what I could have come to many, many times. Sure, I face consequences for my actions and those can sometimes be painful. Still, I’m so encouraged that I have carte blanche to receive forgiveness, and help, to smooth over the tip toe imprints I’ve left behind.

I am a planner by nature. I will sit down about once a month to plan out all sorts of things. I’ve struggled from time to time with needing to be in the know about what’s going on in life. So, when something is impossible to “plan,” I can get nervous or anxious, mostly because I can’t predict an outcome, at all.

What has been even more challenging for me is to be patient. Now, in certain finite things I guess I can say I’m patient because I know that there is an end in sight, eventually. For example, barring any unforeseen circumstances, my kids will graduation high school. This also means they will make it to adulthood and therefore become adults. I’ve already lived this idea once so far, so it’s not that I have to have stress or anxiety about it, nothing can stop time, after all. Kids aren’t kids forever. A car does get paid off, eventually. A leaky faucet can be fixed. A broken bone does heal. A cruddy winter does transition to spring.

A marriage is ongoing and will continue as such indefinitely. It doesn’t just pause, take a hiatus, move on to other ventures for a while until it suits. That’s tough. Still, it involves two people.

What do I do with my time with the Lord? How do I organize my time around life, responsibilities, and all these things I can manage when I don’t always have answers for this one thing? It’s been so hard to figure out, but I have decided that it’s much easier to simply do nothing. Now, that sounds wrong. What I have noted, though, is that if I try and work myself up into a powerful emotional state, I just get stressed out-like I have to reach that pinnacle every time I am “with” the Lord, or it’s not good, not worthy. Now, I do what I can, when I can. And, yes, I do MAKE time for Him daily: praying or reading, or studying, or worshipping…but not all three, for a specific time period, or else. I have to trust that the time I put in does pay dividends, and not anything substantive that I can “cash out” or show anyone. It’s just between me and Him. And, if I’m honest, the fruit of that time is evident with others in my life so that over time my closeness to Him draws others to that place, or at least considering that place, too :).

Trusting the process of faith, the process of relationship…of time, of commitment, of honor, of value, of hope, of trust, of need, of surrender is just so intimate, private, necessary. It’s often all I have and that’s all I can do.