Engage us

(This sermon is based on the following scripture verses, 1 Samuel 17: 37b-55a; 1 Timothy 4: 4-16; Matthew 15: 21-28)

When I was 14 years old, a student pastor came to my congregation and discipled me as to what it means to live life as a Christian in the world. We met on a weekly basis for almost a year, and I learned a lot about life, about ministry, about sharing things with a brother in Christ, things I might not normally share with just anyone. It was during that time that I first heard God calling me to ministry. For the next 3 years or so, I did a lot of work within my home congregation to see what it would mean to become a pastor within the Moravian church. Unfortunately what I had thought that it meant to be Christian was not true. I had thought that it meant being smart, being well educated, preaching a good sermon, go to a lot of meetings in order to keep the building well maintained. It was actually kind of fun to do this stuff, but it got old really quickly.

Then, when I was 18, I spent a year abroad in Sweden and other than Christmas Eve, did not spend a single day in church. It was great! I made tons of new friends, most of who did not go to church, spending lots of time outside in the summer, relaxing in the winter, just having a wonderful time. When I came back to the United States, I went right off to college, where I joined a fraternity and lots of clubs. There was so much good stuff going on in my life, and I didn’t miss going to church at all.

One day, I was driving around as a part of my internship when I saw a Moravian church. I hadn’t been in a church in over 3 years, and something made me go back. I’m not sure what made me go, other than God. But that really isn’t the point of me telling you this part of my life. I told you this because I want to highlight the first verse we read this morning from 1 Timothy. It states that everything God created is good.

Now, if you read the first 3 verses of the chapter, which I urge you to do, you might be compelled to say that I am taking this verse out of context, but I want to tell you that one of the reasons we lose a lot of young people in church today is directly related to the fact that we as the church do a poor job of telling our younger members that everything God created is good, and sometimes that includes things which the church fails to recognize. Sometimes the church as a whole tends to say that things like music are bad, or that perhaps certain types of food are bad, or even something like sex can be negative. As a teenager, when we realize that these things in and of themselves are not necessarily bad, but that the church tells us they are, the logical conclusion is to stop attending church. If you ever do decide to go this way, you are not alone. I certainly did it, as do so many other people in our generation. But the important thing we as youth must do is continue to bring positive things which we know God created into contact with the church, in order to broaden the influence we have in the world.

I have a question for the youth today. Did you notice that what the 3 scripture verses had in common? Any guesses? That’s right… they all have youth in them. Last weekend, I went to a conference with a wonderful speaker named Mark Yaconelli who works specifically with youth.
During his presentation, he told us what we needed as youth leaders to do to engage youth today with Christianity. Most of the time we as leaders and elders think that the simple fact of having a youth group means that you are sufficiently engaged. Unfortunately, that is not true. Instead, there are 4 things that we as pastors, teachers, elders and friends must do in order to engage you in the life of the church.

The first thing we need to engage you with is the sense of Wonder. Can you imagine the sense of wonder which David had as he faced Goliath? Heck, the whole army of Israel was captured by wonder. Here is a 9 foot tall man, which is about two feet taller than Yao Ming, covered head to toe in armor with a pretty serious looking sword. I imagine that young David pretty well understood what it means to stand in Wonder, especially with the sure knowledge that God was going to be with him as he defeated this monster of a man. Regrettably, as a young person in the world today, I think it is very difficult to be in awe of anything. We spend so much time in front of screens that things happening in the world rarely intrigue us as they should. Whenever we go somewhere, we are always in a rush, always hurrying, almost never stopping long enough to be in awe of the wonders around us.

Mark Yaconelli told a wonderful story about his four year old son Joshua, who realized that his father was always rushing him to the next place he had to be. Joshua wanted to stop and look at rocks or bugs or whatever else caught his eye. So one day they were sitting around at dinner when this little child told the family that he started a new club, called the Slow Club. He was the only member, but the members of the Slow Club were committed to doing nothing fast. Everything would be done slowly, being sure to take one’s time and to be in wonder of everything around it. Mark thought it was cute, but didn’t actually join his son’s club. He went around for years, continuing to do everything at a fast pace, just like he had always done. Then, one day when they were at a camp, when young Joshua was about 10 years old, the lunch bell rang and the whole camp started to run towards the dining hall. Mark tried to hurry his son, knowing that all the good food would be gone if they didn’t hurry up… But his son invited his father with a one day pass into the Slow Club. As they slowly walked to the mess hall together, they saw a pair of rabbits, they saw lizards sunning themselves by a pond, they took in the beauty of the world around them, and for the first time, Mark, who had always been rushing his son everywhere he needed to be, realized that his son was right, and that he needed to spend more time in Wonder of the things which God created. Ever since that one walk to lunch, I believe Mark has been a member of the Slow Club.

The second thing we need to engage our youth in is a sense of heartbreak. Perhaps this seems to be a confusing quality which we should be exposing our young men and women to, but I will tell you today that it is probably the most important. In fact most parents do everything they can to avoid showing children that heartbreak is a part of what it means to be a Christian. But to engage a person in heartbreak does not mean to allow them to date and go through a bad break up. To have your heart break is to see the people which our world pushes to the margins. The gospels calls these people the poor, naked, hungry and thirsty. We must see the margins and empathize with them. Our heart must break at their condition, and we must see Christ in the people the world tells us are unworthy. The second part of engaging someone in heartbreak is to not simply to give money to those people, but to actively spend time with them, to spend part of your life’s journey on their own journey. Doing this leads to the third thing we must engage our youth in today.

We must be engaged in experiences of healing. The gospels are filled with stories of healing. We even read one of them today. A young girl was healed because of the faith of her mother. Healing can take on many forms. Sometimes it is made manifest in physical healing, sometimes spiritual. One of most profound ways an adult can engage their children in healing is through the act of forgiveness. I recently watched a movie on the Amish mothers of the girls who were killed in the school shooting. They immediately forgave the shooter who killed their young children. This is definitely a lesson we all can learn from, but those women, mothers of slain children, engaged the world in a lesson of healing. They knew they could not heal if they did not forgive. If our youth are not engaged in this, they will have a difficult time practicing it when they are leaders in the church.

The last thing we must engage our youth in is Freedom. By all accounts, Philadelphia is the birthplace of freedom, but I’m not speaking of political freedom, or the rights afforded to us in the constitution. Instead, we must be engaged with freedom in Christ. This is a different way of living which is very foreign to the world today. We must show each other that we do not live for ourselves, but for each other, because Christ lived for us.

If we listen to the words Paul wrote to Timothy, he said, “Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” I personally take freedom from the world a bit more radically than most. I love the book of Acts where we get a taste of how the first church lived, where they sold everything they had, worshipped daily, giving to those in need, and shared meals together. I wish I were brave enough to do something like that, but we can start by taking small steps of living free from the world and instead start living free in Christ. Perhaps it starts by getting rid cable TV, or perhaps it means having more meals as a family at home. However you wish to engage the young men and women in your life, showing them that there is a different way to live is extremely important.

Now, I want all the youth to stand up and face the rest of the congregation. I want you to repeat what I say to the people who promised to nurture you into Christian maturity when you were baptized.

Repeat after me:
Engage us/ in what it means/ to live life/ as followers of Jesus.
Engage us/ in the wonders of God/ and the beauty of the world.
Engage us/ in heartbreak./ Show us the margins of the world/ and how to love them.
Engage us/ in experiences of healing./ Showing us how to forgive/ people who have hurt us.
Engage us/ in freedom from the world/ and how to live a godly life.
Engage us/ please/ Engage us.



Amen.