Jesus, Young Life, and Everything In Between.

Ill come out the gate and establish my motive and reasons for this post now.  As I sit here and type this (likely a few days ahead of when I post it) another round of social media "Young Life is_____" has surfaced.  Being a Young Life leader, and having seen these same kinds of tweets/posts hundreds of times before, my thinking has yet to really give it much more thought than the default stance I've already allotted for such a thing.  In the end I think i'm just writing this to have a solid reference to my thoughts on the whole thing.  So there's that.

First lets just talk about Young Life. What is it supposed to be? What is its purpose?  I can say with absolute confidence that its NOT a social club. It's NOT a church. It's NOT something which gives people a "social identity".  I think Jim Rayburn (Founder of Young Life) has ultimately laid it out best and extremely straight forward: "Young Life is Jesus Christ, and dont you forget it!" or another one of his quotes “Young Life is a group of people committed to the idea of winning a hearing with kids for the greatest story ever told.”  Nothing more. Nothing Less.

Now as I think of who I'm ultimately writing this towards I think I would target my main audience to those actively involved within a Young Life group (Leaders, Students, who-ever it may be).  Sure I would love to say this to every person who hates Young Life, or has no clue about what it is, but I think this is something I want to convey to students/leaders I come in contact with to a high degree.  I think in a simple statement I want to just summarize everything into this: Young Life DOES NOT save people. It never has. JESUS saves people, Young Life is just another tool God has used in this process.  I've never met a kid who was saved by Young Life Camp. I've never met a kid who was saved by a campaigners or club.  What I have seen are kids who come into contact with the creator of the universe at Young Life Camp, campaigners, or club.  I've seen people love their friends in the setting of a Young Life "thing" and thus kids seeing Jesus.  But NEVER will Young Life ever save someone, nor was it ever intended to.  This is something I wish I would have really been told in High School/Early College.  Young Life was my identity.  Sure I was seeing Jesus within the community, but I was so concerned with the "Young Life" that I wasn't seeing the big picture.

Now shifting gears slightly we can look at the conflict side of this.  Unfortunately in our culture we've seemed to have synonymize "Christian" with "Flawless/Perfect".  Add to this a ministry which strives for close proximity with all kids regardless of who they are, what they've done, etc.... and you suddenly have a breeding ground for all sorts of things.  Lets further complicate things and add the element that people are FAR from perfect and often exhibit hypocritical tendencies and you really get to whats going on all over in our nation at the moment.  Lets end this paragraph with the famous Ghandi quote "I like your Christ but not your Christians."

So lets get the cat out of the bag. CHRISTIANS AREN'T PERFECT. In fact the most beautiful thing about the gospel is precisely this!!!!!!  We've fallen so short, yet the God of the universe has decided that we, YOU, were worth saving, regardless of just how far we are from the mark. Enter Jesus and the relationship he has offered!  Now lets flip the script a little and add the element of what that really looks like.  You see this radical love which God has poured out isn't a simple "thats cool" and move on thing, it demands a response.  It demands we give our lives.  We no longer represent ourselves, our lives now represent the redeeming love which God wants to show the world.  We are "Gods Ambassadors" as scripture would say.

(Im almost done I promise)

If we are ambassadors we now enter into the realm of how we live.  If Im an ambassador for something im surely not working counter to what im representing.  If I'm preaching Pepsi, why would I drink Coca Cola?  Now, PLEASE HEAR ME, the beauty of the Gospel is not just that God saves us, but also that in the midst of us continuing to be imperfect he STILL continues to show us grace.  But back to the point. How are we living?  Do people want to know God more because of your life? Are we overflowing with the beauty of the Gospel?  As Peter writes in his first letter:

"Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation."

So, what is Young Life in its purist form? Its a bunch of messed up people who want to see and know Jesus. Its a bunch of people who want nothing more than to see their friends come into contact with the living God.  Its simply a tool in God's infinite tool-belt to help people see who he is.  If you're preaching "Young Life" I think you're missing the point.  If you're preaching Young Life, when you mess up "Young Life" looks bad.  If you're preaching Jesus and slip, He doesn't look bad.  If you're preaching Jesus, you wont need Young Life to want to love people.... but maybe He'll ask you to use it in the way he intended: To tell the greatest story ever told.

Oh and lets not forget if you're using the tool of Young Life as intended of course you'll meet opposition.  You're telling people about Jesus, who himself said ""If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."