Sometimes the type of students that make up a youth group look alike. How so? In areas like ethnicity, cultural background, fashion sense, academically minded, speech, and many more that says we're pretty much the same and if you're different than us then you need to move onto another church that caters to your kind. I know we don't really say that, but when you look at the church there isn't much diversity and I'm not just talking about race here.
When Jesus was sharing the story of the Good Samaritan I think that was what he was getting at. To the priest and Levite, the Samaritan was too different, even unworthy of their compassion. Not only was he too different, they wanted nothing to do with Samaritans. But Jesus tells us that everyone, even our enemies are our neighbors. Abraham Lincoln was criticized by even his own cabinet members that he was being too open and friendly with his enemies and he said, "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends on them?"
The danger of a youth group, who has experienced the Gospel of Jesus Christ, yet does not love all and accept all dispenses another kind of Gospel to people. In a way we indirectly say that you get a separate gospel than us. Homosexuals, goths, skaters, jocks, Mexicans, the loners, losers, all get a separate Gospel, but last time I checked, everyone gets the same Gospel from Jesus. Can we be a youth that strives to proclaim an identical Gospel to those who may not be identical to us? I believe we can!
I think one thing we can do when we have youth that visit us that clearly look different from us is to tear down our moral metal detectors. With our tone, body language, and in some cases directly we say, "Hey, are you going to stop that? You need to stop talking, acting, and dressing that way and change." Justification happens at the very beginning of our journey and sanctification, becoming more like Jesus happens along the way...in our journey, but we expect all of that to happen yesterday for the "sinner" who is different from us. Let's begin to change the culture of our youth by loving others as God loved us.
When Jesus was sharing the story of the Good Samaritan I think that was what he was getting at. To the priest and Levite, the Samaritan was too different, even unworthy of their compassion. Not only was he too different, they wanted nothing to do with Samaritans. But Jesus tells us that everyone, even our enemies are our neighbors. Abraham Lincoln was criticized by even his own cabinet members that he was being too open and friendly with his enemies and he said, "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends on them?"
The danger of a youth group, who has experienced the Gospel of Jesus Christ, yet does not love all and accept all dispenses another kind of Gospel to people. In a way we indirectly say that you get a separate gospel than us. Homosexuals, goths, skaters, jocks, Mexicans, the loners, losers, all get a separate Gospel, but last time I checked, everyone gets the same Gospel from Jesus. Can we be a youth that strives to proclaim an identical Gospel to those who may not be identical to us? I believe we can!
I think one thing we can do when we have youth that visit us that clearly look different from us is to tear down our moral metal detectors. With our tone, body language, and in some cases directly we say, "Hey, are you going to stop that? You need to stop talking, acting, and dressing that way and change." Justification happens at the very beginning of our journey and sanctification, becoming more like Jesus happens along the way...in our journey, but we expect all of that to happen yesterday for the "sinner" who is different from us. Let's begin to change the culture of our youth by loving others as God loved us.