Engaging the City

When I was 15 I had the opportunity to go to Ireland for the summer on a missions trip with Teen Missions International. It was an awesome growth experience and defining trip, but those stories are for next week when we talk about how to REPRESENT Christ to the World. I want to talk to you about what stood out to me when I came home from the trip. I left at the beginning of the summer, leaving family, friends and my familiar hometown. While I was gone, a lot of changes took place.

You know that feeling when you’ve been gone for a long time and your nearing your home. You begin to see the familiar and the excitement of getting home grows. I was getting close to home, a few exits away on the highway, when I noticed changes. It didn’t look familiar anymore. This wasn’t right. What was going on? Where are the familiar houses and trees? You see, there was a building project in my hometown that summer. An entire shopping center, including a Wal-Mart and Lowes moved in. It was so different, and I was conflicted on how I should feel about it. I wanted the old familiarity, but I was excited for the new opportunities.

On a much deeper level, when we come to Christ everything changes. When we look at the City in which we live we sense a struggle between the old familiar and the new. How we respond to this struggle will determine how well we REPRESENT Christ to the City.

Monastic Reaction

For some, their reaction to the struggle is to pull out and exit the old familiar. They want to avoid the temptations of the past and they identify the familiar with their life without Christ. They gather in a holy huddle with like-minded believers and begin to develop a new community based on their beliefs and skepticism of the old. The benefits are found in not having to deal with old temptations, at least not in the same form. Creating a bubble to overprotect each other and to build a refuge from the world.

The problem we find in this movement is that these believers lose any influence on the city. They become legalistic in their lifestyle and they lose touch with the surrounding communities. A self-righteous attitude, the “leaven of the Pharisees” that Jesus warned us about.

Licentious Reaction

Some run to the familiar and claim their freedom in Christ means they are to join the city in what’s going on. “Everything is permissible” and “I want to be authentic” become the mantra of these follower. They desire to be relevant and current with the city. The benefit is they have a lot of connections with unbelievers, they have a pulse on the city and they often are instrumental in justice movements.

The danger here is they have retreated so far back into the familiar that they look nothing like Jesus. The Light that is to Shine to the city has dimmed.

I had a friend once who bought into this lie. He and I were sitting at coffee shop discussing how we are to interact with nonbelievers in our sphere of influence.

Let me describe my friend for a moment. Both of us being graduates of Bible College, we were used to discussing theology and such. Upon graduation, I entered into the pastoral ministry. He continued on in a pursuit of philosophy and dead end jobs. He had recently moved in with a girl, whom he occasionally would sleep with. He also had girlfriend whom he was sleeping with too. His vocabulary had changed to resemble that of a sailor. His politics had evolved to match mainline liberalism.

Back to our conversation: I asked him if he ever shared Christ with his friends. His response was, “No that would be inauthentic!”

“Do you want your friends to know Christ?” I asked.

He replied with, “Yes, I do.”

“But you won’t bring Him up in conversation?”

“No,” he said, “that would be manipulating my friends.”

“So how do you expect them to know about Jesus?” I asked.

“They will see that I am different and ask me what makes me different, that’s when I can tell them about Jesus” he said.

“How are you different then them?”

The unfortunate truth is that this is not a isolated situation. Many have forgotten the path of righteousness and think they are “engaging” culture when in fact they are surrendering to culture. Only when we live in holiness does our lives give credibility to what we believer.

The Jeremiah 29 Principle

So if we are not to become legalistic monks, or licentious sell outs, what remains? In Jeremiah 29 we enter a conversation very similar to this one. Some were saying the Jewish exiles should just move into the city of Babylon and become Babylonians. Others were saying they should stay outside the city and make their own commune.

Let me paraphrase what God said. “You are going to be here for a while. Engage the city, but keep your spiritual distinctiveness. Seek to build up the city and your neighbors. As I bless you for your faithfulness to me, I will bless the city. Live among them and reflect my presence to them.”

The struggle between the old familiar and new life is a constant (see Romans 7). Instead of running away from the tension, or giving up, we need to live in the tension. We need to live in the reality that we have died to former things, we live in Christ and we proclaim to others this new life.

How can we do this?

In your schools, in your jobs, in your sporting teams, in your recreation, whatever you do seek to REPRESENT Christ. You will impact your city by being the best student, worker, athlete, musician, etc you can be. When you seek to honor Christ first in these areas you will see an impact for the Gospel. Your life can cause a ripple effect across the city. You do this in partnership with your local church and other Christians in your school and community. Keep the Gospel first and look for ways to share it.

When you work against injustice, don’t forget to proclaim the Gospel. When your feeding the homeless, share that in Christ they can have a home forever with Jesus. When you care for the orphan, share how in Christ they have a Heavenly Father who will never leave them. When you care for the abused, share that in Christ there is healing, fullness and purity that cannot be taken from them. In every hurting life the answer is Jesus Christ. Reaching one person for Jesus will impact the city.

Don’t run away. Don’t assimilate. Purposefully engage the city with your eyes fixed on Jesus and the Gospel on your lips. Stand firm in your faith and have open arms to your neighbors. If this sounds new or revolutionary, it’s not. It’s a message that is about 2,000 years old and was exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ. Spend some time in the Gospels and see how Jesus demonstrated how we are to engage the culture for the glory of God.

Strategy for Success

The bell rings and you hustle to homeroom. The day is beginning and you barely remember getting out of bed. Another day in a mundane routine where you feel like you are just another robot on the assembly line of school. Show up to class, do most of your homework, study, behave and go home, that’s all you got to do. Sure there are momentary highlights of hanging with friends over lunch or a couple of cool teachers, but in reality you feel trapped in a prison. The pressure to fit in, to wear the right clothes, to not say something stupid, or just not to stand out too much so you can make it through the halls without getting picked on.

The reality is that going to school is a battleground. Every day is a fight to survive. Yet this is barely surviving, it can be miserable most of the time. Nothing is worse then feeling like you are going through the motions. Nobody likes the status quo, although it doesn’t rustle any feathers. Barely surviving school is unacceptable. It is the result of living life without direction or purpose.

As believers we should never just survive, but we should thrive. We should live everyday on purpose. We don’t have to develop some new strategy, we just have to obey the one Jesus gave to us in His Word. Love God, care for people and communicate His message to the world!

Everyday you have the opportunity to walk onto your school campus on mission for the One true God. Your school is a mission field with hundreds of kids who do not know who Jesus Christ is. Why do we think it is okay to just show up and survive the day?

The Mission Field

The kid sitting next to you whom you think hates you is a jerk because he is hurting. His parents got in a fight a few weeks ago, his dad left and he doesn’t know if he is ever coming back. That girl is always seeking attention from boys because she is trying to mask the pain of abuse she received last year. That other kid who reeks of pot is trying to numb the pain of being unwanted by his parents. The girl wearing a long sleeved sweater on a 90 degree day to cover the scars from cutting because she just wants to feel something. Each of them is crying out to be noticed, to be loved to have a purpose.

This is what God has called you to do, take His love to the hurting. You are to REPRESENT Christ in your school. You are to live on mission everyday. You are the representative of hope these students who are hurting. What are you doing about it?

Do you want this year to be the most exciting and rewarding school year ever? Live on mission and REPRESENT Jesus every day! Do you want to find purpose in every day? REPRESENT! Do you want to encourage your teachers, administrators and coaches? REPRESENT! Do you want to see fellow students transformed for all eternity? REPRESENT!

WARNING: REPRESENTing is not for the faint of heart. It is the most exciting, thrilling and challenging way to live. Jesus said it is ABUNDANT LIFE! Yet it is costly. You could be made fun of. You could lose friends. You maybe thought of as unpopular. Or you could see your friends come to Christ. You could see that pothead in heaven one day. Whatever happens we can be assured that “the suffering of this present time cannot be compared to the glory to come!” (Romans 8:18).

What is your strategy to RERESENT?

Read: Acts 1:8; Romans 12:2; Matthew 5:16; 2 Peter 1:3-11

What's Your Reality?

Imagine with me for a moment that you were with the disciples of Jesus on the Mount of Olives to hear the last words of Jesus before He ascended to Heaven. Experiencing the horrific scene of seeing Jesus crucified, feeling the sheer terror of Hope being dead and buried, the jubilation of the Good News of His resurrection and now gathering together with fellow disciples on the Mount of Olives. What is this He is saying? “It is better for you that I go to be with the Father for I will send a Helper?” How can it be good for Him to leave us? Who is going to continue on the work that He started?

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth,” He says (Acts 1:8). We are to be His representative? Who am I to take on His mission? We don’t deserve to be His ambassadors, yet He gave us His Holy Spirit to empower us to be just that: His Representatives. And the book of Acts shares how those early disciples fulfilled His command in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and all over the world.

Yet the Mission lives on today! Acts 1:8 has a pattern for us to follow. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ then you are called to Represent! You are to live on mission and these next couple of weeks we will look at what it means to be on mission in your Jerusalem (Home), your Judea (School), your Samaria (City), and to the World. Jesus has called you to a mission and given you the power to fulfill it through the Holy Spirit. How are you living differently to engage your home, school, city and world with the Gospel?

What’s Your Reality?

Reality TV shows have been an allure to our culture for sometime. There is just something about seeing real people face situations, obstacles, challenges and relationships that appeals to us. We want “real” and “unscripted.” We want the “raw” lives of people on display. We want to see what we might do in that scenario. Some of the shows are good fun, clean challenges and audience engaging. More and more there are reality shows that should cause you to blush.

What would happen if then next great reality series premiering on prime time TV starred your family? The entire nation would sit back and watch as cameras were installed all throughout your house and they would observe the interaction of your family? What would they see?

Joshua, in the Old Testament, said “Choose you this day in whom you will serve, as for me and my house we will serve the Lord!” Is this what people would see in your house? Would your interaction with your parents be reflective of the peace of Christ of the adversity of Satan? Would you want people to see how you speak to your parents, the tone you use, the words you say? Would you want the world to know how you treat your siblings? How you do your chores? What would you be feeling knowing that people are looking into your daily interactions at home?

So let’s be honest, that just isn’t going to happen. However our home life does matter. Jesus wants you to live on mission even in your home. Some of you live in a home where everyone is a Christian, yet often your home life doesn’t really reflect it. Some of you live in a home where your parents or siblings are not believers and it takes all you have to even hold on to your faith. One thing we all hold in common is that it is very difficult to always be on mission in our home.

Maybe you never even thought of being on mission at home. Yet we are called to represent Christ in everything we do, in every relationship we are in and to everyone we meet. Representing Christ does not mean that we just spout off the Gospel to everyone and go on our merry way as if we fulfilled His command. Romans 12 has a lot to offer about what a true believer’s life should look like.  

No matter your home life, God wants you to be a light where you live. Learning to talk to others with compassion and love. Developing patience when things are not going your way. Speaking the truth in love, ever so careful of maintaining the relationship of the one you are speaking with.

Your home life is preparation for life. God has placed you in your home, with your family, in your situation to live on mission, to represent Him. He never promises it will be easy, but He says He has given you the Holy Spirit to be your strength. Learning to seek to “be Christ” to your family will help you live each day on mission for Him. When we fix our eyes on Jesus and live on mission in our homes, we will draw others to Christ.

You may not be on a reality TV show, but people come in and out of your home often. Do people come over and find your house a house of peace and comfort, or is it like walking into a battlefield? Seek to live in such away that your home becomes the oasis for your friends and family and a small picture of what heaven will be like.

Evaluate your own home life. How have you reflected Christ at home this week? How have you been a distraction from the Gospel in your own home? Who do you need to apologize to in your home to restore relationships?

The Good News of Jesus is that even when you mess up and you haven’t lived on mission at home, if you confess your sins to Him, He will forgive you! Start today, seek God’s help to live on mission in your home. You will be a blessing to God, a blessing to your parents, a blessing to your siblings and a testimony to the World of your love for Jesus!

What a Week!

Last week at Midwest Family Camp was an amazing week. It was filled with fun, community, challenging teaching and worship. I always love seeing first time attenders come to camp not sure what to expect and then see how God works in their lives. Camp is certainly one of the most exciting weeks of the year.

Our camp theme was “Abide: the grace of the Law.” We looked at the story of Exodus and how God delivered His people from slavery and gave them the 10 Commandments. During our class time we talked about the 10 Commandments using an excellent tool called The New City Catechism, an app for phones and tablets that helps ask 52 essential questions to the faith. We learned that God doesn’t simply want ritual obedience but He wants loving hearts that lead to obedience.

Teen sing was a highlight for many. It’s a teen worship service each night, led by teens. Some nights there were testimonies and the teens opened up their lives with each other, even leading to open confession and dealing with sins. The Holy Spirit led us in a very freeing, life-giving time. Wednesday night we had worship on the beach during a beautiful sunset! Very cool!

Even as I returned from camp with very fond memories and a thankful heart, I came home to the harsh reality of the fallen world that we live in. Many of you may already know or have heard that a young student at Revere High School was killed in a car accident on Sunday night. Katherine Babak was a member of Crosspoint Alliance’s youth group, a youth group we often partner with. Two of her friends and the other driver were seriously hurt and are in the hospital still.

Ryan Lawrence, the youth pastor at Crosspoint, called and asked me to help coordinate a prayer vigil. The last collaboration I had was at camp for a celebration service, and yesterday I spent the day preparing for a prayer vigil for the untimely death of a teenager. You’d be hard pressed to find a subject harder for youth pastors then the death of teens. Yet I am thankful for the community we have in the Akron youth pastors, where we know we have co-laborers who will come to our aid the moment we need it. I’d like to thank Jerry Smith at St Luke’s, Todd Shoemaker at Grace and Ryan at Crosspoint for your efforts yesterday and that will continue in the wake of this tragedy.

Led primarily by Ryan, we held a prayer vigil at Revere High School last night, the first prayer vigil on their campus in over 40 years. We were uncertain of how many would show up, but knew we wanted to provide the space and time for teens and families to come together, to grieve, to share and most importantly to hear the hope we have in the resurrected Lord. Thanks to the power of social media the word was spread and over 500 people showed up last night.

It was an amazing sight to see so many come, write notes of encouragement, prayers and memories for the families. So many wanted to write that our tables were overwhelmed and we had to usher people over to the service. At this point the news of this tragedy was still distant and surreal, until her parents arrived. Seeing them made their pain almost tangible. The devastating agony of having their child ripped from their life brought the reality that we were not just event planning, but creating a space for God to bring healing and hope to deep wounds.

The Babak’s both shared testimony of Katherine’s life and her faith in Jesus. Ryan shared the truth from the Word of God that Jesus conquered death so that we could overcome. Anyone who trusts in Christ will have the power over death one day and has the hope of the resurrection to look forward to. This is what Katherine believed, this is what the Bible says and this is what we must proclaim.

I kept thinking that I have nothing to offer, I have no words, I am inadequate to be there and counsel in this. Yet God reminded me that He understands her parents’ grief. He knows what it means to lose a child in a tragic way. He was there when His Son died on the cross for sinners. He saw His boy beaten, crucified and buried. That was real! God the Father agonized the loss of His Son. Though He knew the resurrection was coming, the event, the pain, the separation was real. He knows pain.

It is the very truth of the resurrection that will bring the healing to the family, to the community. Jesus conquered death! He promised a home for those who trust in Him, that He would come back for us and we will be with Him forever. This is the truth we have to offer. This is the hope to cling to during a tragedy.

The reality is that nothing we say today will alleviate the pain of separation right now. It will take time to heal. It will take friends, family, community and church to heal. Yet the truth of Chris is ultimately what will bring healing, comfort and hope. Thus we proclaim it. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16 ESV).