The Command and the Promise about Our Youth

Have you ever noticed that guy at the side of the road, sticking thier thumbs out at the world and wanted the courage to stop - but driven on? My friend Roy Comrie had the courage to stop. That the hitch hiker had an AK47 rifle in his hand and that it was just after the end of the Rhodesian civil war might give some indication to just the amount of courage Roy had.

Anyway, the guy got in and sat down, with his rifle between his legs. He said nothing. Just looked around the car for clues, as to who this madman was who stopped to pick him up. On noticing a Bible, there was some unfriendly words about Christians and missionaries. Roy says that this was the most violent man he had ever met and therefore the place to take him was the most violent place there had ever been. So Roy told him, in his own native language, about Calvary. He, in turn, told Roy about all that he had done during the war. Gruesome and barbaric stuff that had led him to the point where he wasn't even able to sleep.

On arriving in Harare the rifleman refused to leave the car until Roy led him to Christ. A week later when they met for Bible Study the man was excitedly shouting at Roy, "Baba Comrie, I'm sleeping now!"

The cross of Jesus Christ changes everything in life and eternity. It has power to make the most violent of terrorists sleep. 2000 years on and it is more than a truth, it is a truth that sets us free. In a world of post modern new age pluralism and confusion it is so important that we recognise Christianity as a unique faith that contains the dynamic of new life. For us in The Presbyterian Church In Ireland that cross is central to all that we are. What a message we hold on to and reach out with to our community? Yet, we have a problem. A few problems actually. Only 33% of our young people baptised between the years 1975 and 1984 are still attending Church. This is our own young people even before we look outwards in evengelism. We are failing to communicate. Young people are rejecting their parents faith. We are an ageing denomination. We are heading for carpet warehouses.

Yet we are commanded to hand down the faith. In Psalm 78, we read, "He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so that the next generation would know them..." We have the task of the next generation knowing the faith. Our other dilemma is that all those baptised in our churches are our responsibility. We welcome them into our community of faith. We take promises to make sure they are brought up knowing the faith. It's not just the parents responsibility. So how seriously do we take the command and the promise? What are we doing about the crisis at hand? How much of our session meeting or Presbytery meeting or indeed our General Assembly do we spend on thinking about the soul drain of our youth?

The Youth Board recently took a video of our students at Derryvolgie. I was asking them what they would pray for now, about what their Church would be like in 20 years time. Their response was interesting. Accepting. Loving. Understanding. Relevant. Belonging. Not one of them mentioned changing the service or the building or their minister!!!!!!!!!! It made me consider Paul's words to the Corinthinians, "We fix our eyes, not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Because what is seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal".

Our students were considering unseen things. The more important things. Now I am not saying for a minute that that means we can be complacent about liturgy or preaching. However, what our students are longing for happen beyond the Sunday services or midweek prayer meeting. They want real connection. They long for community. They want to belong.

Is it not so often the case that if young people behave, we will put up with them until they believe and then we will allow them to belong? For the disciples belonging came first. It seems that after three years with Jesus they were still striuggling to be sure of what they believed until the Holy Spirit came upon them at Pentecost. Behaviour was the very last thing to change. I sometimes find it sad that we refuse kids entrance to our Youth Clubs because they scribbled on the toilet door. Three years into his discipleship training, Peter was cutting people's ears off with a sword. Within hours he was denying his faith but come resurrection and Jesus was keen to let him know, that with behavioural problems and doubts in his belief, he still belonged.

There are no magic answers to this time of crisis. We are groping in the dark. Wrestling with ways to present the gospel in new and contemporary ways without compromising Scripture. Yet for me the starting point is so obvious. We drive up to it once a year. Stop. Spend time there. Then we move on, having missed it. "The Word became flesh and lived for a time among us" is as close as we get to the secret of fulfilling the command and keeping the promises. We need to engage in a new relational community lifestyle that allows our young people to know that they belong. From a place of acceptance and the security of belonging they may come to stay in our family long enough to believe. Then as they grow and mature they will begin to behave like the saints that there is the potential for them to be. That is why Jesus died. That violent men might sleep and that our children would grow into saints. The command obeyed. The promise fulfilled.

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