Tag: Church

What Exactly Are Students Walking Away From?

We’ve all read the numbers.  We all get a little panicky when we think about how many students are walking away from church.  If the numbers are true, we’re facing a very serious problem because what we’re doing as parents and youth workers is not working.  We must grapple with one very difficult question:  why are students walking away from church after high school?

Maybe I’m over simplifying the issue but I think the answer is very easy.  Students aren’t walking away from church.  It’s not that the statistics are wrong.  Barna and Fuller have their numbers right.  That isn’t it at all.  And yet, I believe that students aren’t walking away from church.  They never belonged to church in the first place.  They’re walking away from something else entirely.

 

WHAT IS CHURCH?                                    

What is church?  That’s a really good question.  Personally, I think it’s best to define church by what I read in the New Testament.  Church is the Jesus community.  It’s a people bonded together by the presence, love and mission of Jesus.

The church is marked by the presence of Jesus.  There is something to be experienced in the church that cannot be experienced anywhere else.  The experience is different because Jesus is Immanuel.  The presence of God is with us.  Lives are being transformed.  Light is shining into darkness.  Life is breathed into death.  Hope is breaking forth in the midst of tragedy.

The church is defined by love.  The Jesus community shocked the world and overthrew an empire with love.  The Jesus community transformed the world in a few short centuries through inclusion, radical service, and care for the oppressed and forgotten.  Where the Gospel is preached and lived the world can never be the same.

The church is defined by the mission of Jesus.  The church is inviting people to follow Jesus.  It’s not asking people to join a club.  It’s not trying to fill seats in a building.  It’s inviting people to follow the most compelling person who ever walked the soil of this planet.  The church is inviting people into the restoration of the world through the Gospel of Jesus.

 

WHAT ARE STUDENTS WALKING AWAY FROM?

This is the church.  Students aren’t walking away from this.  People don’t walk away from the church.  It is far too magnetic.  The true church—defined by the presence, love and mission of Jesus is incredibly compelling.  It transforms lives, communities, cultures and nations.   Our students are walking away from something else entirely.

Maybe the problem is not that students are walking away.  In fact, they might be doing us a favor by pointing out the real problem.  Perhaps the problem is that we aren’t being the church.  Maybe we as parents, pastors and church leaders need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves some hard questions.  What exactly are we doing anyway?

 

The Hope For the World

“Nobody cares about orphans in this country.  The Christians don’t want to get involved and everyone else pretends they don’t exist”  This was the criticism I heard from the director of a Ukrainian para-church organization 3 years ago after spending a heartbreaking and life-changing week with Ukrianian orphans.

I’ve never felt more hopeless than after leaving the orphans I had fallen in love with, knowing that 70% of the girls would end up involved in prostitution and most of the boys would end up in prison or addicted to drugs living on the streets.  Who would care for them?  Who would lift them out of poverty and hopelessness and teach them how to live.  No one.

That was 3 years ago.  In my opinion, the game has changed.  Along with me in that orphan camp 3 years ago was a Ukrainian pastor named Sasha who, to be honest, seemed to be there against his will.  He was the speaker for the camp but he didn’t seem to enjoy it at all.  He also seemed rather unwilling to engage the orphan children relationally.

But, when we returned to the camp the following year, he was waiting for us along a bunch of people from his church.  There could be no doubt, he was a different person.  His entire demeanor was different.  He had fallen in love with orphans.

As it turns out, he experienced the same haunting feelings of hopelessness and felt compelled to become more involved in orphan ministry.  Here was a man fighting against the cultural tide and leading his church to do the same.

Our second year of ministry with the orphans was amazing because we served as the body of Christ.  The Holy Spirit overcame 7 time zones, national borders, and language and cultural barriers to produce amazing camaraderie between Americans and Ukrainians.  It was a beautiful experience.

Some of these Ukrainians reordered their entire lives to serve orphans.  One young woman began visiting the orphans every weekend.  Now she’s teaching cooking classes in the orphan school, developing relationships what will endure as the kids exit the school and enter the real world.

Last month, I returned to Ukraine alongside 23 friends from our church.  This time, 25 Ukrainians from 3 different churches met us.  The passion of these Ukrainian Christians was deeply evident.  They led the way in all aspects of the ministry.  In three short years, everything has changed.

A few days after our orphan camp experience, I met a young pastor near Kiev whose passion for orphan ministry blew my mind.  I fought back tears as he described how his entire church is training to become mentors for orphan kids.  Their church is welcoming the orphans into their community with open arms.  They are teaching them vital life skills and connecting them into small groups.  The people from this church are setting up ministries at the local technical schools—where the orphans go after their time in the orphanages is complete.  The church is even putting on its own summer camp for orphan school graduates.  I honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  His vision and model for ministry is amazing.

I also met a woman who, because of her orphan camp experience, plans to leave her medical practice and set up a transition home for orphans.

3 years ago I left Ukraine utterly hopeless.  I cried for weeks and even experienced terrible nightmares about the bleak futures awaiting these orphan children.  This year, I left with a powerful sense of hope.

God is in Ukraine.  God is moving in His people and His people are responding.  They are loving and equipping orphans.  God’s people are doing incredible work.  This is the church.  The church truly is the hope for the world.  When the church does what it was designed to do, it is beautiful, compelling and transformational.  I, for one, am very proud to belong to the church of Jesus Christ.