THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

February 9, 2002

IF you, dear reader, are personally aquainted with me, you may have read last week's column and screamed, "HYPOCRITE!" After all, didn't I work for Young Life? Isn't Young Life the Christian youth evangelical organization with the motto "It's a sin to bore a kid with the gospel"? This is a fair criticism and I should respond to it.

First of all, the opposite of boredom is not entertainment. While it is true, that most people today think that way, the two things are not opposite ends of the same spectrum. I have experienced moments of sheer terror in my life where I was most assuredly not entertained -- nor was I in any imaginable way bored. Likewise, I have been in movies or other "entertainments" and experienced unimaginable boredom. This argument, while it satisfies the objection, does not say anything important, it just clarifies our vocabulary a little.

What most people don't understand about Young Life is that its programs are not the heart of the ministry. In all of training I received, one point and one point alone was driven home -- The heart of the Young Life ministry was in something that they called "contact work." Contact work is where the leader or leaders venture into the world of the kids, on campus, in the local hang out, wherever the kids were, there was a leader. The leader's purpose was to build a relationship with those kids -- to become their friend. The idea was to follow the model of the Lord Himself, who knew that salvation for man could only happen when HE became a man and then hung out on earth with us.

Were the sermons of Jesus, the focal point of His ministry on earth? If you ask what really changed things it was the Cross and the apostles. The sermons were important, but the relationships were what changed the world. In Young Life, the theory was that the programs were a place to explain what the friends of the leader were experiencing and feeling in their relationship. The programs were the place to name Jesus, but without the relationship, that was just another word floating out there. That was the theory....

I didn't last very long with Young Life because I discovered the dirty little secret. Bills had to be paid, and programs are what attract dollars. People are not willing to cough up cash to pay someone to hang out around a high school and make friends, but they are willing to donate to a "club" that has a bunch of kids coming to meetings once a week. So in reality, what I thought my job was (make friends with kids and share the gospel) and what my job really was (get a bunch of kids to come to meetings so there was enough money to pay my salary and pay the percentage that the higher organization took!) were two different things. I did pretty well at what I thought the job was, but not so good at what it really was, so I got fired.

It is this same dilemma that lies at the heart of what I have been writing about these many weeks. Trying to save the mainline churches is trying to save the wrong thing. We are supposed to be instruments to help God save people -- all the rest of it is a means to that end. My experience with Young Life is why I am so passionate about it. I am convinced that Christian organizations die because people try to run the organization, instead of do whatever it is the organization was created to do.

This is really tough for me because it automatically means I have to question the motives of people I really care about. People who have loved me and helped shape me, and taught me much, I have often come to find were less interested in me than in what I could do to help keep the organization running. There is no more telling point in any "professional" Christians life than the point where caring about someone, and their "job" are in conflict. This is a topic for an entire column and I am warming up to it. Let me just say this for now -- Any pastor, or other Christian professional, that does not live in a state of agonizing tension between the needs of the organization they serve and the needs of the people they serve is probably doing something wrong. I myself cannot resolve that tension, thus I cannot be in "professional" ministry. Because I cannot find a resolution for that tension, I am suspicious of anyone that seems to have. I have never been able to find anyone in professional ministry that can explain it to me -- and believe me, I ask.

I cannot believe that Jesus came, ministered, was crucified, and resurrected for the crap that I usually experience in Christian organizations. I've heard that "Already, Not Yet" stuff as well, and I don't buy it entirely. The Holy Spirit is here with us now. The power to do things very differently is here with us now. There has to be more to Christianity than building organizations that behave remarkably like ones that don't call on the Lord Creator of the Universe.

And don't give me that, "He helps you in your personal life" stuff either. Of course He does, but Jesus came to change the world. Now, it is most apparent he did not choose to change it in the manner we would suspect. He chose to change it one person at a time. What I know is that the second step after personal salvation is that those of us that have been changed need to treat each other in a radically different manner than those who have not been changed treat each other. RADICALLY DIFFERENT!

I have experienced a few isolated cases where people can treat each other in that radically different manner. I think my wife and I treat each other that way. I have been in small groups that acted in that mode for a while. But this I will say, anything more than about 20 people and it all falls apart. Wish I knew why. Wish I could develop a vision for a large group behaving in this radically different fashion. Somewhere in here there is a parallel between the Law of the Old Testament and the Word of the New, but I don't want to work that out just now.

I can't help but think there is something I am missing here. Surely God has a way for Christians to get together in organizations and have it work. God is all powerful, I know He can do it. I just wish He would.

With Love,