adding to the noise
July 13, 2011
We’re currently working on forming a new youth group in the West Side, called Oasis. The name came from a picture my friend received, of a beautiful wellspring within a deserted, barren wasteland. A place of shalom. A safe place where high school kids are freed to be themselves as God made them to be.
This is what we’ve been tasked to create. It has made me spend a good deal of time thinking about my youth group experience and how we can best address the needs of young people. We still have a lot work to do in our vision and structure for Oasis (as we always will!), but one thought has stuck out to me in our planning thus far.
Much of presenting Christ to youth is about walking the line between the sacred and the profane. I think we often don’t believe that most kids are prepared for a real Truth experience; this fear is much of the reason for the creation of youth group to begin with. At the same time, we don’t want a purely secular interaction, as we know we’d short-change them by shying away from introducing them to Jesus.
But the answer is not to choose both. We often allow the profane if it means earning our chance to share the sacred. We split our ministry halfway between entertainment (which holds kids’ attention) and religious ritual (where we hope they will be ‘saved’). This often works at getting kids in the building. It sometimes works in getting them to “pray the prayer”. But it rarely works in producing a lifelong devotion to God.
So what is lacking? I think we have to stop seeing ourselves as the salesmen, from viewing Jesus as a product. When we do, we separate Him from the world He meets so naturally and perfectly. This is the very reason the Word became flesh, so that our profane world and The Sacred God could be brought together. I think what is missing in our approach is this real interaction between these elements of sacred and profane. The God of our worship songs doesn’t seem capable of translating to the realm of silly games and funny videos, much less to the inner turmoil of broken families, relationships, and lives.
What I hope we can do at Oasis is bring these two worlds closer together, by addressing the profane more fully and presenting the sacred less religiously. We want to meet the profane by talking about gangs, about poverty, about family issues, about friendships. We want to make the sacred known not by our ceremony, but by bringing to light how God’s Love reaches into the brokenness of our lives.
Hopefully, in this we allow God the space to reveal Himself to our youth as the fulfilment of everything in their lives. Silly games and all.
If we’re adding to noise, turn off this song.
