Riding the Wave

Scot Bower, August 30th, 2010

'Why are young people so important to the church?' A man with a professional looking movie camera had pushed what appeared to be a furry woodland creature under my nose and was firing questions at me. Quick questions that anticipated smart off the cuff replies for a slick promo to advertise 24-7 Prayer’s international gathering… at least that was the idea. I’m afraid when confronted with a video camera my brain tends to freeze and words stutter from my dry mouth, very uncool indeed.

That was a few weeks ago but the question I fumbled a reply to persisted. Why are young people important to the church? Are they important? If they are then how do we value and encourage the young people who are stepping up to the plate in this generation?

I should point out that at the age of 35 I value the maturity and wisdom of age increasingly and Bob Dylan’s words ‘I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.’ have become something of a personal mantra over recent years.

There are of course many biblical and historical accounts of both young and old being used by God in incredible ways and age is never a criteria for selection! However we've got to admit that there's something special about young people (I’ll allow you your own definition of the word ‘young’!). They find themselves at the edge, either pushing forward or at the back retreating like mad from the masses. It’s this emerging generation that should ride at the crest of the wave and when they’re championed and supported we often find that wave breaks with fresh energy bringing new life to the church.

It’s always been that way:

• Before the Cambridge Seven in the UK and the Student Volunteer Movement in the US set out to change the world in the 19th Century, Hudson Taylor had paved the way. Hudson Taylor left England for China at the age of 20 having dropped out of medical school!
• The friendly Aristocrat, who 24-7 Prayer often hold up as an example of Prayer and Mission, Count Zinzendorf was just 22 when he allowed a band of Moravian refugees to settle on his land at what became Herrnhut. A few years later it was a young man from Herrnhut by the name of Leonard Dober who first heard the call to give up everything and travelled from South East Germany to the Caribbean ready to sell himself into slavery in order to share the love of Jesus with slaves. The modern missions movement can trace it's roots back to a teenager from Saxony!
• Over a thousand years earlier St Benedict dropped out of college (ok so college’s weren’t exactly around in 500AD but he did turn his back on his literary studies in Rome!) and headed into the hills eventually establishing a group of Abbeys which transformed monasticism and played an enormous part in the growth of the church in Europe. Another college drop-out who changed the church and the world!
  

In the late middle ages monasticism was renewed and the western church changed forever by the example of a young man.

Francis was a typical teenager, fun, outgoing and often in trouble. He and his friends fought in pitched battles with neighbouring towns and Francis' dream was to become a knight and to go and fight in the crusades! He wanted to be famous, he wanted to be rich, he wanted what most young people in the western world have ever wanted!

Francis’ journey towards Christ took years and eventually ended with a bout of nakedness in the town centre as he turned his back on his family and embraced the church with a life spent loving the poorest and communicating the message of the love and life of Jesus. He and his  friends looked after lepers, sang at parties (GK Chesterton refers to Francis as ‘Le Jongleur de Dieu’ - The Jester of God!), and prayed… a lot.

So here we have a rapidly growing number of young people who turned away from the trappings of material life and who were challenging the status quo. These were young people on the crest of that wave urging the church on.

Perhaps the most striking and surprising thing about the story of Francis is the recorded reaction of the established church. They could easily have been forgiven for dismissing Francis as a heretic (and a lunatic!) and I wonder what the church might look like today if they had! Ever since his streaking incident Francis had been championed by the local bishop who encouraged him to go to Rome and seek permission from the Pope to carry on with what he was doing (effectively starting a new monastic order).
The Pope understandably gave Francis a bit of a tough time. But he discerned the Spirit of God in Francis and blessed what he was doing... That's incredible... A scruffy young man appeared before the leader of the western church and is blessed and encouraged… to go for it!… To change the world!

This page isn’t long enough for me to explore Francis’ later adventures but they are well worth reading and it’s worth mentioning that Francis died at 45. The majority of his ministry accomplished by the time he had reached the age at which he might just be getting started these days.

Often when we explore the real stories of saints and heroes like Francis, Hudson Taylor, CT Studd, St Benedict etc. we find ourselves at odds with our preconceptions. Behind the pictures we're familiar with of stately, bald headed men with enormous grey beards we often discover that these wonderful characters weren’t nearly as ancient as their portraits make out! These were just young men and women who rode the edge of the wave and that understanding will help us today to realise the continued importance of the emerging generation to the church.

If you consider yourself ’young' hopefully you’ll be encouraged to change the world, like Francis, to ride the edge of the wave and challenge the status quo. Perhaps though you wouldn’t describe yourself as ‘young’ (whatever that definition might actually be), if so maybe your role is to seek out those younger than yourself and disciple them, encouraging them, supporting them with your gifts of experience, wisdom and maturity, coaching them in how to surf at the edge of the wave. Either way in a few weeks time in Edinburgh at 24-7 Prayer’s international gathering Magnify we’ll be talking a whole lot more about a vision to change the world and you are warmly invited (and encouraged) to come along and play your part.

Come on! Let’s change the world!!