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Thursday, September 10, 2009

NO STRINGS ATTACHED


When I was in high school, I don’t recall ever being asked to attend a youth group. I don’t think I even knew they existed. Whether I was too intimidating, too nerdy, or too cool (I would think it’s that one ;) ), no one ever invited me to attend their church. I find that peculiar because I lived in a pretty small town with several churches.
I did have two friends though that weren’t anything like the rest of my friends. I knew they attended church. I knew they had Christian activities in their lives. I knew one of my friend’s dad was a Pastor at a local church. These two friends were the closest thing I had to Jesus in my teenage years. But they never invited me to go to their church, which in part, I’m thankful for. They did except me for who I was. They would try influencing me in the opposite direction that I was being influence. If ever I had a question about God, they would try and break it down for me. They truly taught me that as individuals, they wanted to show me they loved me by being a friend rather than leaving me at the doorstep of the church to be a project while they fled away from the opportunity to partake in the Great Commission.
How beautiful could it be if the Christian youth of our communities could learn how to be friends rather than project managers? How effective would their lives be if they learned to make friends with no strings attached? How great would it feel to see them loving the person, sins and all?
The youths of our communities are in a daily battle of influence. And I think it’s a battle that the Church is losing. I think the kids that don’t know their identity in God’s eyes will have nothing to do with a friendship that has strings attached. I’ve heard church kids get upset because their non-Christian friends won’t give church a try because they think it’s boring. I had to bite my lip to not tell them that I’ve been to some churches that I didn’t even bother trying to stay awake because it was so boring.
If we can teach the youth that understand the beauty of God that a loving friendship is about THEM showing their friends God’s love by THEIR actions and THEIR words rather then trying to uproot them from their life and having them partake in a church culture they are totally unfamiliar with and most of the time is complete nonsense to them. I think the influence of today’s youth could potentially swing towards the Church if we can learn to love unconditionally, rather than with strings attached.

1 comments:

ColinT said...

Amen!!!!! It seems too many people, teens AND adults, think to much about thinking that WHAT we do = who we ARE rather than WHO WE ARE = WHAT we do.
it is all to common for people to get caught up in 'religion' rather than the personal relationship with HIM that leads us to freedom....