I’ve met a lot of teenagers. And I met them mainly through church. And that’s where the problem comes in for me. You see, I’m confused. People say the word “church” and what do they think? It depends on the person. Some think overly pious snobs who sit in their pews wearing Prada shoes and turning up their noses at the poor and ungodly. Others think of people who constantly shove a Bible in their faces yelling, “You must be saved!” And while being saved is important, it’s not the whole story-it’s the beginning. And this is where my confusion comes in.
Too many people believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior and then just leave it alone. They go to church on Sunday, get convicted, cry, go to the altar and pray, and then lose it when they walk out the door. You would never know that Jesus is supposed to be their King of kings. They act just like everybody else. Especially teenagers.
I know that teenagers face constant peer pressure to be like everybody else because I felt it and I still do. I’ve given into it and sometimes I still do. There’s a certain standard set (not a very high one) for teens that includes loafing your way through high school, graduating with a C average, partying hard on the weekend, spending Friday nights on dates, playing a sport(s), a few chores, not crashing your car, getting a job, and maybe paying for your own gas. Not very much is expected of us. Not very much is asked of us. Not even of Christian teens.
For Christian teens the bar can be raised a bit (but not too much). We are expected to stay away from those parties (or at least the alcohol), keep our purity until marriage (or however much of it we can manage to keep in our wave of compromise), go to church on Sunday, go to Christian youth conventions, volunteer every now in the name of Jesus (or getting those community service hours needed to graduate), and religiously attend youth group on Wednesday nights.
We are raised in Christian homes with Christian parents. Why then does the apple fall so far from the tree? Because our faith is not our own, it’s our parents’. And because we don’t know the real Jesus.
Out of all those teenagers I’ve every met, a handful I would say are genuinely saved, genuinely concerned about heavenly things, though not enough to distract them from conversations about movies, non-Christian music, and (with them being mainly girls though a few boys are included) guys they like, guys they hung out with, and buff, handsome movie stars. In ways, they’re better than normal, worldly teenagers, but they just don’t have it all there.
Out of all my teenager acquaintances, I can, maybe, pull five who I know are sold out for Christ. They still have their faults and their shortcomings, but you can see the Jesus glow. You can hear it when they talk and see it in their smiles. And so, the question that sums up my confusion is, why aren’t there more teenagers like this? Why is five pushing it when I look for teenage friends who really know and love Jesus more than anything? Why can’t I find anymore alien youth?
I’m asking you to join me in an alien invasion-an invasion of expectations, peer pressure, and the whole dead culture surrounding the teenage “world”. I’m asking you to help me say that I know five, ten, fifteen, twenty, a hundred teens sold out for Christ, living their lives to the fullest of His purposes. Because without Christ, we’re dead and we know it. Let’s storm Planet Earth, take it over, and set up a new kingdom-His kingdom.
