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Personally, I think all the gimmicks are a waste of time. In my opinion, God doesn’t need our help. He doesn’t need a glossy veneer or a spiffy band singing rock songs or some super cool event to prove Himself.

I think He quietly stepped out the back door when we–the church– decided that we needed to help Him out because He’s not doing a good enough job reaching these “mysterious” and “hard-to-understand” youth.

They’re just kids, people—with high school mentalities—full of insecurities, (and many of them) bad attitudes and a healthy dose of inherent rebellion.And speaking of the youth who have grown up in the church–maybe if they had better adult role models around them they would be more interested in the things of the Lord. And I’m not talking parents who are good people devoted to the latest “green” humanitarian fad—most everyone around us is a “good” person.

What kids need to see is adults they love and respect on their knees, repenting, and allowing God to change them. They need to see their alcoholic parent delivered, their foul-mouthed uncle cleaned up and burning his hidden porno mag stash.

But the majority of Christian adults don’t want to truly surrender to the Lord. It’s more comfortable to shush the promptings of the Holy Spirit because He makes us feel “bad”—send the kids down the hall for their own “private church experience” where they don’t have to witness the adults’ empty worship services, and fill the space the Holy Spirit left behind with “cool stuff.” Worthless glitz that doesn’t mean a thing in eternity’s light and that the kids see right thru as they conclude that believing in God is just another empty status symbol—another clique identifier—like the Goths and the cheerleaders and the nerds.

We’ve bumped God out of the way and I think that’s why the youth are so difficult to reach.I also believe we have spoiled rotten kids on our hands. In my opinion, they expect to be entertained wherever they go. They expect to be the center of attention and they expect the adults around them to work for their “priceless” acceptance (we can thank modern media for this conditioning—all the “because you’re worth it” ads, ad nauseum).

The modern churches have become as desperate as high-end designers lavishing gifts upon any given superstar in the hopes that she/he will wear their brand to the next big event. The church needs to stop apologizing to these endless text-messaging, “I’m my own star”—believing 16 year olds for the “boring” truth of Jesus’ gruesome death for their sins.

The power of God doesn’t need any help. Maybe what these kids need is a total stripping away of gimmicks and more preaching of the actual Word. Maybe they need less stroking of their selfish, me-centered egos and more hell, fire and brimstone sermons. Maybe they need a slap of reality across the face to remind them that if they don’t stop playing games—if they refuse to be set apart from this wicked world–they’re going to end up in the fiery pit just like the rest of us. God IS no respecter of persons and they’re going to burn if they don’t get down on their knees in total surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

I shudder to think what these kids are going to do when they’re 10 or more years down the road, with a mortgage and few kids and a “normal” life that’s void of all their dreams and they have nothing left to fall back on–no God to calm the screaming emptiness in their souls at the end of every noisy fast-paced day. In my opinion…we need to reach the youth of today with reality and transparency and the example of our own repentance—and when we only get 10 kids out of a 1000 to listen and accept, we need to thank the Lord Jesus for raising up His small Gideon’s army—His remnant that is ready to fight the hoards of hell until His return.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Going Back to the Source. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.