Keepin' It Real

One of the most rewarding aspects of youth ministry (especially Jr. High) is taking the big, grandiose spiritual concepts and reducing them to their most basic form, making them manageable for the adolescent mind. Let’s face it – so often we get caught up in trying to so intellectualize our faith, to state it in the largest theological term possible, to make it so big and lofty that it loses its original potency or at least doesn’t resonate the way that it used to. Sometimes we try and slice and dice an aspect of our faith so much that we lose sight of its original simplicity and beauty. The great thing about working with kids is that even if you wanna do this, which I am usually inclined to do, you just can’t. Jr. Higher’s aren’t impressed with fancy words (unless they’re four-lettered or describe a body part) - keep it simple and don’t apologize for it.

The last couple of weeks I have been teaching through John 3 and 4 with our Jr. High students, really hammering home the simple gospel due to the fact that many of our kids are lost or unchurched, and it has been most refreshing. Tonight I talked on John 3:16. That’s right, John 3:16. The verse that Christians and non-Christians alike know, the verse that we have known since the womb, the verse spray painted on posterboard in the stands at football games. I kinda actually forgot it is in the Bible – and that not only is it in the Bible but that it is remarkably beautiful and remarkably simple. God…World…Sacrificial Death…Belief…Life…it’s the Gospel. I hope I never tire of talking about the Gospel – the plain, life-changing Gospel. There is a balance though as in all things. We can make the Gospel over practical and lose sight of its original intention and power reducing it to self-help or therapy or feel-good positive thinking but we can also over philosophize, over theologize, over lexicon-ize, over analyze, over rationalize and forget that at the end of the day Christ came into the world to simply save sinners and that’s what people need to hear.

It’s funny when you look in the New Testament – Jesus didn’t give any preaching seminars to his disciples, they obviously observed their master and picked up things along the way but Christ doesn’t really ever sit them down and say, “…so Pete, after the 5 point outline remember three things: make sure all of your points start with the same letter; make sure you throw in at least one fancy word to impress the audience; and always preach for at least 30-45 minutes.” Maybe he gave them a crash course and we just don’t know it but you’d think it would be recorded – I mean these were the people who had been entrusted with founding the universal Christian church from the ground up – seems preaching would be important. Instead we see Christ speaking pretty matter of factly with people, we see Christ use a lot of word pictures and stories, we see the apostles in Acts preaching unbelievably directly and simply. We do hear of a really long sermon given by Paul at one point but a kid fell out of a window and died during it – I’ve had kids point to their watches while I speak before but someone falling out of a window would definitely be interesting.

I dunno. Just throwin’ it out there. I think a lot of times preachers just like hearing themselves talk and I’m guilty of this. I think a lot of times we unintentionally but also sometimes intentionally try and make the Gospel more dressed up than it is – we put the Gospel in slacks when I think it really wore jeans. I think sometimes the most powerful sermons are the most simple. Sometimes the most lingering are the shortest. The Gospel is simple and powerful and wonderful and Christ said that the kingdom which the Gospel was building belonged to little children.