Christianity, like any large group, has more than its fair share of subcultures. Attending public schools my entire life, and finding kids I would meet at youth group weird and socially inept, I was resigned to be the only Christian in my groups of friends growing up. I was quite fine with this – not because it gave me the chance to evangelize my friends – but instead because I was stricken with fear of becoming like those odd kids I’d see at church.
After getting involved with Young Life as a high schooler, I quickly realized I had no ownership over my faith. Having a circle of friends without any Christians didn’t groom me to be an apostle. The people I met through Young Life pushed me to take ownership of my faith and be a more active Christian in the lives of my friends – something that surprisingly was very unnatural to try and do.
After working as a leader with Young Life for two years during university, I’ve become quite removed from the times when I was spending my weekends and summers trying to exemplify Christ to a bunch of rowdy high school boys. While Christian culture can be attractive in itself, becoming immersed in it is not what God has called us to. And though we are ‘in’ the world but not ‘of’ the world, the Gospels lay out a pretty fine blue print for how we should live.
The Christian life was not designed to be lived in isolation, so a community of believers is crucial to spiritual growth. And although it would be impossible to take away all of the lessons taught to us by Jesus, one of the most key is that we will feel most connected with God when we are being discipled/mentored/poured into/choose your verb by someone more Christ-like than ourselves, while we intentionally disciple/mentor/pour into those less spiritually aware or mature than ourselves.
With Peace + Love,
John Hennenfent
Editor-in-Chief
9:26 AM
I continually question your student leadership as what you write in most of your editorials that seem to drift here and there and your belief system…. I find it difficult to read your editorials because they take too much in into a short editorial. You have good argument ideas but it’s like they are all over the place.