12: Fifty Ideas to Find a Generation

When we wrote unChristian, my coauthor, Gabe Lyons, had to convince me that contributions from Christian thinkers and practitioners would add to the project. I’m so glad he did, because the whole point of that book was to start people thinking and talking about the public’s perceptions of Christianity. In retrospect, it’s easy for me to see that the ideas offered by our contributors are among the significant ways God has inspired readers to move from thinking and talking (both important) to doing and changing (where necessary).

Now that we have reached the end of You Lost Me, it’s my hope that—whether you are young or old, prodigal or nomad, exile or dedicated member of an established church—you will be inspired to take a similar journey. To spark some thinking and talking (and eventually doing and changing), I have asked a number of people to contribute their best ideas for how the Christian community might cultivate a “new mind” for understanding and discipling the next generation. Some of these contributors are well-known, while others are not. Some have seen a majority of their years pass, while others are just emerging as adults. Some offer ideas for older believers and institutional leaders to consider, while others speak directly to young Christians and dropouts.

Not every idea will relate to your particular situation (every story matters!), but you are likely to find at least one that resonates with you, your parents, your children, your youth or college group, your organization, or your church community. When you do, I hope the conversations you start will lead to deeper, whole-life discipleship that shapes your relationships, your vocation, and your pursuit of God.

Two notes before we dive in. First, contributing an idea is not an endorsement of everything in this book. Likewise, I do not agree with every idea you find here—and that’s intentional. One of the big lessons I have relearned through this project is that we don’t have to agree on everything to remain in Christ-centered community. Second, these fifty ideas are only the beginning. At the You Lost Me website, www.YouLostMeBook.com, you’ll find more ideas from contributors such as Mark Batterson, Margaret Feinberg, Adam Hamilton, Reggie Joiner, Dan Kimball, Mac Pier, Greg Stier, and many more. You can also share your own best idea for creating the “new mind” we need to be and make disciples as Jesus commanded.

Here are fifty to get us started.

IDEAS FOR EVERYONE

It’s so much harder to go first. None of the rules have been set. The boundaries have not been drawn. The borders of the land have not been clearly marked, especially when it comes to Christian circles. But that’s what we’re called to do, to throw ourselves on the honesty grenade. To share and live the truth. When we do, we give everyone the gift of going second. It’s so much easier to go second. You don’t have to perform or shine up your mistakes to look like a “real Christian” or a “good Christian.” The monster of pretending to be perfect has already been laid to rest.

Most Christian organizations create a culture that dissuades confession. We create codes of conduct for youth that we either don’t live by or strive to live by without confessing our failures. All this does is create a dissonance that eventually deconstructs into a hypocritical church. Instead of policies that help sinners rebound, we create communities that isolate sinners, either from the community by expulsion or within themselves because they have to keep sin hidden (leading a double life). Honor codes essentially become “don’t ask, don’t tell” documents—it’s no wonder so many churched young adults leave the church!

There is a new generation rising up. Young adults are studying the Bible without missing the obvious. They see how shallow methodology is incongruent with the Jesus of Scripture who asked everything of his followers. They are bored with Sunday morning productions and long to experience the Holy Spirit. They need to be challenged with the awesome responsibility of praying for, baptizing, and making disciples of their acquaintances. They need to be reminded of the Spirit who supernaturally empowers them for this task.

The consumer gospel that promises a life of happiness from now until eternity is wearing thin for street-smart, networked young adults. This gospel of personal fulfillment is either bolted onto the busy lives of twenty- and thirtysomethings as a lifestyle improvement app or dismissed as a cheap marketing pitch. Either way, this gospel is powerless to help the next generation resist the riptide of consumerism, individualism, and materialism that is the dark side of our modern culture. We need to rediscover the Bible’s grand narrative and teach an all-encompassing, multi-dimensional gospel. By showing how the life and death of Christ brings reconciliation with God, neighbor, creation, and self, young adults will hear the call to live as a prophetic sign of God’s coming kingdom.

He had Abraham take a walk, Elijah take a nap, Joshua take a lap, and Adam take the rap. He gave Moses a forty-year time out, he gave David a harp and a dance, and he gave Paul a pen and a scroll. He wrestled with Jacob, argued with Job, whispered to Elijah, warned Cain, and comforted Hagar. He gave Aaron an altar, Miriam a song, Gideon a fleece, Peter a name, and Elisha a mantle. Jesus was stern with the rich young ruler, tender with the woman caught in adultery, patient with the disciples, blistering with the scribes, gentle with the children, and gracious with the thief on the cross.

God has existed from eternity, but he wants to do a new thing with you. The problem many people face when it comes to spiritual growth is that they listen to someone they think of as the expert—maybe the pastor of their church—talk about what he does, and think that is what they are supposed to do. When it doesn’t work for them—because they are a different person!—they feel guilty and inadequate. They often give up. But spiritual growth is hand-crafted, not mass-produced. God does not do “one-size-fits-all.”

The greatest gift we can give future followers is to recover the imaginative, creative life that is born through the saving grace of God and hold it out as an invitation to follow. What if an invitation to follow Jesus went something like this: Come meet Jesus. He has the power to forgive sins and the power to renew all of life. He is inviting you to come alongside him as his kind of imaginative, loving person in the creative life of caring for earth and people. He is renewing all that he loves. He is the maker whose Word to us begins and ends with creativity. He has made all things and he’s making all things new.

Understanding this passage made clear to me that my calling as an architect is not secondary to work that I do in and for the local church. In fact, it may be that God wants me to be the best architect I can be even more than he wants me to teach Sunday school. This idea seemed somewhat heretical to me a few years ago, but as I have lived into it, I have come to see its truth. God has gifted and called people to be butchers and bakers and website designers. Some of that work can benefit the church, but the vast majority of it is intended to benefit the world at large, beyond the doors of the church.

I am convinced that both the church and art are fully realized when they are fully participatory. There is art that is created by professional artists, and it is there to be observed and appreciated. Then there is the kind of art that says, Come one, come all—picture preschoolers in smocks finger-painting and memory-care patients making beaded crafts. It is inclusive and valuable because it is simply creative. I’m afraid our quest for “excellence in worship,” which has been a focus in the church for several years now, has set the stage for congregants to sit in our services like Simon Cowell, judge on American Idol, deciding over lunch what part of the service had the “X-factor,” instead of asking themselves how they might engage and contribute.

While I can’t get on board with a general cynicism about the church, I can appreciate the desire, especially in young people, for an opportunity to participate, the rejection of commodity and performance-based services, and the longing for real mission and service together. Art at its purest is not a commodity or a performance, and the church is alive when we are problem-solving, studying and serving together, and engaging our local communities and the issues facing them with the kingdom creativity of the gospel.

In a post-9/11 world, the word radical makes us nervous. It reminds us of religious extremists, so to avoid confusion we dial down Christian passion. But to mute the radical nature of God’s love in order to avoid religious extremism is like turning down the radio in order to stop the car. Extremism operates at ideology’s thin and brittle edges, whereas the radical shape of God’s love is found at Christianity’s pulsating core: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The root of Christian faith is the cross, the consequences of God’s love for us.

Doing radical things for our faith means imitating Christ even if it makes us look silly, or if it loosens our grip on some part of the American dream. Yet these risks are not lost on young people who know in their toes that Christianity is a dangerous thing. They know, perhaps better than we do, the price to be paid for trading in travel soccer for Sunday morning worship, for choosing a low-paying job instead of dealing drugs, for seeking a vocation and not just a profession. What about giving away 20 percent of our income? Casting our lot with a struggling faith community instead of a thriving one? Using vacation money to build an orphanage or risking ridicule by practicing chastity? In some communities, staying in school through graduation is a radical measure; in others, risking a promotion to be home with your kids is.

We undersell Jesus. We merely describe Jesus as a partner, Jesus as a means, Jesus as an escape. We seldom present Jesus as the source and center of joy that he is. In our failure to do so, we leave young seekers hungry and unsatisfied. We lead them to think that they must satiate their God-given desire for joy in something else. They look for it in fun, family, business or cultural goods, holiness or purity, sex or adventure. All of these are good, but none of them are ultimate. And so these young seekers wander. Looking, but never finding. Tell the next generation the truth: Jesus is the only source and must be the center of joy for every person.

IDEAS FOR THE NEXT GENERATION

A key reason why emerging adults are MIA from their congregations is the collision of sexual and religious impulses in their lives. The two seem incompatible. In fact, emerging adults are marrying on average five years later than their parents did. (Those are five libido-packed years, let me remind you.) The impulse toward sexual oneness is a strong one, but young Christians are beginning to resist the centuries-old narrative that marriage is good, earthy, and feasible—that it’s what Christians in love are supposed to do next. Too many emerging-adult Christians are settling for cohabitation, convinced that in a divorcing culture they’re being shrewd to proceed with caution. Moving in together, however, has a way of squashing the religious impulse—the one that motivates us to meet together in public worship, which has long been a hallmark of our common faith. Rising together for Sunday morning worship just seems odd in that scenario. So it goes dormant in favor of other forms of spirituality. Cohabitation, however, isn’t a rebellious act—not when it’s the norm. No, the countercultural move for emerging-adult Christians is marriage.

A growing trend among Christian camps, churches, and parachurch ministries is to provide a gap year experience for students that forces them out of the routine of “schooling” and into a deeper relationship with God. These residential programs typically last nine months; focus on worldview, identity, and service; and include a cross-cultural experience. While not for everyone, many students who participate in gap year programs are far more prepared for the transition to college and adulthood.

Education should lead us to know, love, and serve God. We know God through faith and reason, and this is what education must strive to achieve. As Pope John Paul II wrote, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to contemplation of the truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know Himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves” (Encyclical Letter, September 15, 1998).

I write this as a brand-new graduate of Thomas Aquinas College, ready to take on the world. I’ve been blessed with four years of Catholic liberal arts education—four years of theology, philosophy, mathematics, science, and literature—that has led me to God through both faith and reason. I feel anchored in the truth and ready to share it with others. I know many are unwilling to hear it. I only wish they too could see what I see and think what I think—not because I wish to conquer them, but because I want the truth to set them free. I feel the contagion of my own happiness and wish only for the chance to spread it to others. I can’t help believing that if they had the chance to see the marriage of faith and reason, they too would embrace the Way and the Truth and the Life.

The Bible begins with the marriage of Adam and Eve and ends with the marriage of Christ and the church. Right in the middle, we find an unabashed celebration of erotic love called the Song of Songs. I believe that every love song ever written (and oh, how many have been written!) is an attempt, however broken, to enter the Song of Songs. All we need do is turn on the radio and—if we listen—hear the cry of the heart for love, which is to say, the cry of the heart for Christ. Inasmuch as a culture’s songs provide a window into its soul, I think the rise of rock music in the 1950s and ’60s is very telling. If we can recognize the Song of Songs as the “soundtrack” of Christianity, I think “rock and roll” could be described as the “soundtrack” of the sexual revolution. I’m not saying this to condemn rock music. I’m saying it so we know how to redeem it.

Millennials have been called the “justice generation.” It’s time we seize some of that justice for ourselves, by refusing to settle for the counterfeits to marriage and family we have inherited. We must harness the passionate conviction that makes us yearn to live a story larger than ourselves, then focus on processing and promoting God’s script for marriage and family. If we embrace this cause the same way we embrace many others, we will see hearts heal, restore hope, and turn this world upside down.

As men and women in the marketplace, we must first figure out what purpose God has for our businesses, and then lean on biblical principles and theology to actually shape and grow these businesses. Thankfully, we have some role models. Mars Inc.’s economics of mutuality creates sustainable communities in East Africa. Chick-fil-A’s servant leadership equips its owner-operators to celebrate the stories of its employees and customers. DEMDACO emphasizes aesthetics in order to lift the spirits of everyone it touches. Servicemaster uses the principle of subsidiarity to empower its entrepreneurs. While these efforts may seem “soft,” they reflect an attempt to find a “marketplace shalom” that leads to human flourishing—an attempt to find convergence between the real marketplace and the real kingdom.

IDEAS FOR PARENTS

I don’t think they were disappointed in me—more sad and wondering where they went wrong. But true to their usual goodness, they let me know that they love me and that nothing can change that. I felt and still feel the same about them. Yet there is an inevitable disconnect that developed as a result of my walking away. A family like mine is rooted in the foundation of the Bible and faith in Jesus—careers, relationships, weddings, funerals, most holidays, and weekend activities. I have respect for my family and their faith, for how it has formed their lives and, in turn, informed mine. But by my own choice I no longer share in those beliefs so I find myself the odd man out, even though I know they don’t think of me that way.

One of my greatest struggles as a believer has been the battle to integrate my faith into all of life. If the gospel is truly transformative for all of life, which areas of my life have I kept sheltered from its touch? This same struggle is front and center in the lives of the emerging generations today . . . with some unique nuances. One glaring area of omission in our ministries to youth and young adults is our failure to teach them how to integrate their faith into their media use. The most recent research tells us that the average 8- to 18-year-old is spending more than seven hours a day engaged with media.

If all we can muster up is a few media “don’ts” that keep our kids from media violence, sex, and profanity, we’re continuing to fail. We must go out of our way to disciple kids into thinking Christianly and biblically about their media use by teaching them to recognize worldview elements, evaluate those elements in light of God’s Word, and then make media choices that bring honor and glory to God. Let’s stop thinking about media for them. Instead, take the time to think Christianly with them, so that they might be prepared for a lifetime of integrating their faith into their media use and practices.

When the topic of faith gets too contentious, debate often gets channeled to other arenas. Rather than talk about God, we end up fighting “proxy wars” over inessentials. Yes, it’s tempting to vent irritation over a young doubter’s party lifestyle or political views or choice of relationships, but these are bad hills to die on. Avoid getting sucked into debates about peripheral issues. Too often we become embroiled in these proxy wars and unintentionally alienate our loved ones who are struggling with doubt. Even if we manage to convince them that, say, our morality and politics are superior, will that really lead them back to the faith?

Instead, focus on nurturing the relationship and building bridges of trust. And save your most impassioned words to talk about the gospel—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Their lifestyles and opinions may well be contrary to Christian truth, but our job isn’t to straighten out all their opinions; it’s to light the path back to Christ. In theological terms, don’t expect sanctification to precede salvation. Only when they’ve had a dynamic encounter with Christ will he resume his transformational work in their lives.

You lost me too when I was about fifteen or sixteen. I wanted no part of an institution filled with hypocrites who “talked the talk” without “walking the walk.” But in my early twenties I began searching for truth instead of searching for a church. My search led me right back to Christ. I realized I had thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Most people who leave the church are not really rejecting God or Christ. They are rejecting an institution or specific people who claim to represent him. We can make the good news sound like bad news by distorting and obscuring the amazing, all-loving God who wants to embrace us in spite of our sins, our shortcomings, or our legitimate questions.

Young people are looking for answers and for authenticity. When they see a church or Christians seemingly more concerned with appearances than with truth, more concerned about rules than love, and more concerned with money and success than poverty and justice, is it any surprise that they flee? And parents, what do your own children see when they look at you? Do they see lives deeply dedicated to following Christ in every dimension of life or do they see only a religious veneer with a walk that doesn’t match your talk? Young people have a sensitive nose for phonies and for hypocrisy. And when they smell them, they run the other way.

Our family’s growth has been accelerated by our international travel. Our children have grown up consistently exposed to the truths of Scripture but, like many, find the allure of the world quite distracting. They can become disinterested in Truth. We trust the Holy Spirit’s work in their hearts in this regard, but we also seek to compliment his work by giving them experiences that challenge their notions of what it looks like to really follow Jesus. Something happens inside when you find yourself getting to know someone who makes less than a dollar a day but who, at the same time, rejoices in giving to their local church. Our kids have been impacted deeply by seeing that although much of the world does not live like them, as brothers and sisters in Christ we all share the same joy of salvation.

As you eat together and participate in each other’s lives, guide them to Jesus. I don’t mean church and I don’t mean salvation and I don’t mean Christianity, though each is part of it. But these make absolutely no sense until they are connected to Jesus. Talk to your kids about Jesus, read the Gospels with them, tell them about how the apostles preached Jesus as Messiah and Lord. But above all, make sure you are a follower of Jesus and show them how Jesus shapes your life. If Jesus is in your life, then guiding your kids to Jesus is taking them to the center of the presence of your life with God and their life with you.

IDEAS FOR PASTORS, CHURCH LEADERS, AND CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATIONS

Our Sticky Faith research shows that the more high school and college students are engaged in the overall life of the church, the stronger their faith. We’re seeing churches experimenting with countless intergenerational connections, ranging from short-term service to hobby mentoring (e.g., cooking, gardening, art) to intentional small groups. Plus lots of churches are taking the “adult” events they already do (e.g., women’s breakfasts, men’s dinners) and strategically inviting kids to join in.

When he walked this earth, Jesus ministered to crowds but invested the majority of his time, energy, gifts—his life—in the next generation of young leaders. He invited them into close relationship and challenged them to take responsibility in God’s mission. His life was accessible, and from him they learned not only about God’s Word, but how an intimate relationship with the Father flows with kingdom power. His life was transparent, and so they learned how he treated the opposite sex, how he handled money, success, pressure, and pain. Jesus was secure enough to invite this young, inexperienced team to share his calling. He gave them opportunity to grow, fail, and mature. Then he gave them the movement to lead and stepped away. And the world was transformed.

What if we older, more established church leaders who hold the authority, property, money, and other church resources were to hunt down eclectic, somewhat ragtag, young women and men, and give our power and stuff to them with the instruction, “We choose you precisely because you are not like us. Here is your charge: Go after those who are seeking God. Do not copy our ways. Do not do what we have done. Innovate. Try. Fail. Succeed. Forge a new path. Build new kinds of churches and communities. Show us a new world founded on love, not doctrine. We will help and give advice only when asked. Now get on with your task. We are with you!”

One of the coolest things that we’ve got going here at The Simple Way emerged from men in the neighborhood and local pastors who had seen enough kids grow up in a fatherless society and become statistics. They started a discipleship program for young men called Timoteo* (Spanish for “Timothy”). It is now a flag-football league with nearly 200 youth on a dozen or so teams—and every team is sponsored by a local congregation. Young men feel loved, develop character, discover Jesus, and learn conflict resolution (where better to learn gospel nonviolence than on the football field?). But here’s what else has happened: Timoteo has become a mission to the church, getting folks out of buildings and onto the football field. Pastors who might not usually get together unite in a common mission to mentor young men and love them into Jesus.

Faith development needs to look different from what a traditional white church has historically provided. Youth need to hear from people that look and think differently than they do. This means actively seeking ethnic, gender, socioeconomic, and ability diversity. Our demographics are changing, and we need to face the fact that our churches and parachurch organizations need to change. Story is central in this development, so churches and parachurch organizations need to provide a safe space for youth to share their stories. Only then, I believe, will our young people be able to develop their faith in a vibrant way. We need to acknowledge and talk about our differences in order to understand who God is.

Time has become a precious commodity for this generation, and they have many choices about where and how to spend it. Whether they are rich or poor, popular or unknown, smart or of average intelligence, they only have 24 hours to spend each day. What are we as a church offering that is a better value for their time than other opportunities? The answer is not better programming, creativity, or special effects. These teens are interested in the kind of power and community that only come from Jesus.

IDEAS FOR SUPPORTERS OF THE NEXT GENERATION

I want you to be someone I want to grow up to be like. I want you to step up and live by the Bible’s standards. I want you to be inexplicably generous, unbelievably faithful, and radically committed. I want you to be a noticeably better person than my humanist teacher, than my atheist doctor, than my Hindu next-door neighbor. I want you to sell all you have and give it to the poor. I want you to not worry about your health like you’re afraid of dying. I want you to live like you actually believe in the God you preach about.

I have trouble reconciling the disconnect between what the church is saying and what its members are doing. I fail to understand the application when the church tells me to live in accordance with the Bible, but the “scripture” I see its members live by is titled “If I Work Hard I Am Entitled to Whatever Makes Me Happy.” I understand the concept of providing for my family, but I’m disappointed when conversations about new granite countertops seem to carry more weight than those about following Christ. I see so much work for financial gain, by both church members and churches themselves, and I don’t think that is what I should be pursuing for the sake of Christ.

If I can speak for my generation, we are presented with this dichotomy: your hard work has afforded us incredible opportunities, while at the same time your priorities and actions speak volumes. I’ve become thoroughly convinced that having more of anything other than love for God and neighbor will leave me dissatisfied with my relationships and possessions. I wonder how radical the church would be if our actions spoke louder than our words, and those actions reflected the Greatest Commandment.

Our work does not look like a traditional Christian ministry. The name of Jesus isn’t in our title, and evangelism isn’t the primary focus of our daily activities. But we are working for God’s kingdom and believe this is the way God would have us reach people for his purposes. God has placed a dream and a calling within us, and we ask that the church, rather than seeing us as young and idealistic, would see us as warriors of God who are acting as the arm of Christ, reaching the world with love, hope, and empowerment.

The majority of students at evangelical Christian colleges walk onto campus already deeply committed to the Christian tradition and to chastity in particular. Even if they have had sex already, they are typically trying to figure out what chastity means in light of this experience and how to honor it in their romantic relationships in the future. However messy their lives and choices may appear, we can trust their passionate faith commitments. Yes, many are confused and struggling with sexual decision-making in a society that constantly yanks them away from their religious commitments. But most are doing their absolute best to figure out how to be Christian in the midst of these struggles—and they deserve our faith in them. This is especially important as we all sit down at the same table, on an intergenerational level, to grapple with the church’s approach to sex.

But I was not alone. Four years earlier, a neighbor had invited me to church, where I had found joy and respite with many new friends. In my dark hour, I turned to my Christian family for comfort. My “church moms” encouraged me to go to a Christian university in the fall rather than returning to Houston, but I had no way to go—no money, no ride, no clothes. So they got organized. They started a fundraising phone campaign. Several got together to sew new clothes, while another took me to Neiman Marcus to buy a new coat. Just a few short days later, I found myself in Abilene, reaping the blessing that God and his people had provided in the wake of my brother’s death.

Some in previous generations felt the need to separate from culture, to insulate themselves in Christian cocoons constructed of Christian movies and Christian music and Christian schools. Millennials reject such an approach. As the social structures of our world keep piling us on top of each other, they know separation is both ineffective and impossible. They desire to live within culture where they can repair the fallen places, but they need to be discipled and encouraged. They need trans-generational partners who possess the wisdom to undergird their efforts.

We all agree that the gospel of Jesus Christ is “the thing of first importance” (1 Cor. 15), and we echo the desire of the church eternal that has worked over two millennia to announce God’s kingdom. Both generations recognize that God created a “good” world in the beginning (Gen. 1:31), and his ultimate desire is to “make all things new” (Rev. 21:5). The question for us now is whether or not we will work together to see this story progress in individuals, neighborhoods, cities, industries, and entire nations.

Young people often have a save-the-world mind-set. While we might be extremely idealistic, we also have a great ability to get things done. We are not satisfied with letting the injustices of the world work themselves out over time, but want to do something to help. Now. Neither are we satisfied with easy answers or sugar-coated truths. We need to explore for ourselves the world and how we fit into it, to challenge the rules and systems already in place, and to have our findings listened to and respected.

This is not to say that we have all the answers. Far from it. Our idealism can be naïve at times, and our goals can be fickle and short-lived. We need mentors, guides, and role models to whom we can bring our successes and failures and be comforted, applauded, and, most importantly, led into reflection, all without feeling judged or inferior. In a world more diverse and connected than ever before, we see salvation in the faces of others, and we seek as mentors those who treat others well and who—like us—are working to make an immediate and permanent difference by fostering a mutual respect with all. We recognize the ability to get things done, and seek those who listen to the word of the Lord.

The creative implementation of innovative ideas is at an all-time high. Rapid advancements in technology and human networks have exponentially opened up new pathways to actualizing one’s passions. Unlike in past centuries, people no longer need to wait for “permission” from established institutions to pursue a dream. If a person genuinely cares about a product or cause and commits wholeheartedly to giving his or her life to it, he or she will find or be found by a tribe of like-minded people.

Real substance is the one great foil to the faux world of marketing. That’s why authenticity is viewed as today’s highest virtue, even when it’s ugly or vicious. In a world yearning for authenticity, any Christian message that draws its impact from technique, technology, or “new paradigm” methods will do no more than draw short-lived attention. We must make truth touchable. The Good News must be as tangible as the wood of a cross. Without a visible expression, words like transformation, grace, and radical discipleship will be quickly dismissed as just another hyperbolic sales pitch. But these words made visible—even imperfectly—will crash through competing messages like a bulldozer through a Hollywood set.

We are compelled by Jesus Christ to demonstrate with our lives that there is a kingdom breaking in that beckons the next generation to give all they have and all they are to the things that matter most. This generation knows that some of the greatest heartaches of our globe are wrought by human disasters of violent injustice, and they want to make it right. This, therefore, is the generation that will grow to know, love, and follow Jesus because they discover in Jesus the one true God of justice who restores a world breaking under the weight of darkness. When we seize opportunities to lead this generation by demonstrating how the body of Christ is a vessel of God’s rescuing and restoring justice, we will see their hearts won by the King who has ultimate victory over the gravest evil.

All human behavior and institutional structures reflect moral commitment to something—even if that commitment is so taken for granted that we no longer notice. The fact that slavery is illegal in the United States, for instance, is based on beliefs about the inherent dignity of the human person that were, at one time, bitterly contested. The 1960s sexual revolution rested on a belief in the separability of body, heart, and mind—but is this belief true to how humans really are? If not, then how are we instead? What are we for? How do we know?

One of the best things we can give the next generation is a philosophical vocabulary with which to understand the eternal questions of the human experience, and a clear understanding of the possible answers—and their consequences. I am not talking about Christian apologetics, or any kind of rationalistic attempt to “prove” that one worldview is better than another. I’m talking about a calm, thoughtful ability to probe the moral commitments of what we see and hear and ask, “Does this ring true with what I know of human nature and human need? If not, then why not? And what can I do about it?”

The distinction between “God did it” and “This is how God did it” is a helpful device I use in my classroom to defuse the tension between science and religion that many students presuppose. A student who concludes that “God did it!” and goes no further stifles curiosity and furthers the false notion that science and religion are enemies. Big Bang? Geologic time? Evolution? The multiverse? I preface any potentially inflammatory discussion by saying that we’re going to discuss the contemporary scientific views on these matters. Then I tell students that, for those who believe in God, these theories can be viewed as “how God did it,” while those who have no belief can understand these ideas simply as “how it happened.” Sometimes a simple distinction can help overcome the false choice between Christianity and science.

Year by year, I invite folk in their early twenties to come along with me and learn to read the Word and the world at the same time. We read Augustine’s Confessions, we read Wendell Berry’s stories and essays. We talk a lot about sexuality, knowing that if we can’t make sense of our bodies—what we know most intimately—then making sense of anything else is suspect. But we also talk about politics and the arts, about economics and globalization, about the theological imagination and philosophical questions, always working hard in the hope that truth is woven into the very fabric of the universe.

This breaks my heart because not only is Christianity true, but we have good reason to believe it. And yet somehow in the church we have become afraid of doubt and questions. We prefer simple answers that validate our beliefs. This may have been less problematic in the past when culture was much more amenable to the Christian worldview, but it is a significant reason we lose many young people today. The Internet has leveled everything. Young people have equal access to Christian apologetics, Islam, Wicca, and every other conceivable worldview. Doubts are natural for this generation, and we ought to invite tough questions from young people. The key is not to give pat answers, but to teach them how to think (we can only do this if we have done our homework and worked through our own doubts). In my experience, this is best done in relationship by asking further questions rather than providing simple responses.

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