Jesus Wrecked My Life (Part One)
by Shane Claiborne
As a youth leader, I remember seeing one of the high school kids that I witnessed “give his life to Jesus” get busted only a few weeks later for having Acid in his school. I remember asking in disappointment, “What happened, bro? What went wrong?” He just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I got bored.” Bored? God forgive us … for all those we have lost because we have made the Gospel boring. I am convinced that if we lose kids to the culture of drugs and materialism, of violence and war … it will not be because we didn’t entertain them but because we didn’t dare them. It will not be because we have made the Gospel too difficult, but because we made it too easy. Kids want to do something heroic with their lives … that’s why they play video games and join the army. You can only sing “Pharoah Pharoah” so many times. And eating cereal mixed with backwash out of someone else’s mouth can hardly compete with eating squid guts on Fear Factor.
I remember hearing one of my college profs say, “Being a Christian is about choosing Jesus and deciding to do something incredibly daring with your life.” I found it funny, since most Christians I knew lived just like everyone else, and had lives that were anything but daring. I decided to take Jesus up on the offer. The adventure has taken me from the streets of Calcutta where I worked with Mother Teresa to the warzone of Iraq where I lived through the bombing of Baghdad. Following the footsteps of Jesus, I have found myself led to the halls of power and the slums of the destitute, amidst taxcollectors and peasants, dragged into courtrooms and jail-cells… I can’t remember what it feels like to be bored.
A while back I did something dangerous, I decided to read the Bible. I fled the Christianity that was suffocating me, the fast faith that I had gorged myself on, another over-churched soul starving for God. I simply began to ask, what if he meant the stuff he said. And things have been a mess ever since.
[Shane Claiborne is a founding partner of The Simple Way, and will be a main session speaker at Shift 2008. Used with permission of YouthWorker Journal.]
As a youth leader, I remember seeing one of the high school kids that I witnessed “give his life to Jesus” get busted only a few weeks later for having Acid in his school. I remember asking in disappointment, “What happened, bro? What went wrong?” He just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I got bored.” Bored? God forgive us … for all those we have lost because we have made the Gospel boring. I am convinced that if we lose kids to the culture of drugs and materialism, of violence and war … it will not be because we didn’t entertain them but because we didn’t dare them. It will not be because we have made the Gospel too difficult, but because we made it too easy. Kids want to do something heroic with their lives … that’s why they play video games and join the army. You can only sing “Pharoah Pharoah” so many times. And eating cereal mixed with backwash out of someone else’s mouth can hardly compete with eating squid guts on Fear Factor.
I remember hearing one of my college profs say, “Being a Christian is about choosing Jesus and deciding to do something incredibly daring with your life.” I found it funny, since most Christians I knew lived just like everyone else, and had lives that were anything but daring. I decided to take Jesus up on the offer. The adventure has taken me from the streets of Calcutta where I worked with Mother Teresa to the warzone of Iraq where I lived through the bombing of Baghdad. Following the footsteps of Jesus, I have found myself led to the halls of power and the slums of the destitute, amidst taxcollectors and peasants, dragged into courtrooms and jail-cells… I can’t remember what it feels like to be bored.
A while back I did something dangerous, I decided to read the Bible. I fled the Christianity that was suffocating me, the fast faith that I had gorged myself on, another over-churched soul starving for God. I simply began to ask, what if he meant the stuff he said. And things have been a mess ever since.
[Shane Claiborne is a founding partner of The Simple Way, and will be a main session speaker at Shift 2008. Used with permission of YouthWorker Journal.]
Labels: conference
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home