19 Things I Learned In 19 Years Of Youth Ministry, Part 17

It was all new to me.

I had been out of the church for about three years. And even when I was in church, it was serious business on Sundays, what with Sunday School, silver chalices with real wine, stained glass, kneelers, what to say back to the pastor and when to say it, sit it down and shut it up. I was even an altar boy.

But Wednesday? Nope. We lived kind of far from the church and we didn't do that much. The rest of the week? Nope. Not at all, although my mom taught me the Lord's Prayer at an early age and I said that before I went to bed.

So, when I came back to Christian circles about three years after my dad's death, I was literally starting from an elementary understanding. My mom even had to buy me a Bible to take to Bible study. I mean, we had a family one, and a Living Bible was in the den, too. But she had to buy me my own. At age 16.

I found out we got the "wrong" version.
I didn't know where Thessalonians was, either.
I got raised eyebrows if I mentioned that I'd never heard the word "justification" before.
I was questioned on my purchase of the new Ozzy Ozbourne record ( for my younger readers, a "record" was a method of recording music for playback on a piece of round vinyl, used before something called a cassette tape and requring a "needle" on a "turntable" to play).
I was never really afraid to ask questions, and I could tell that sometimes this made the other guys roll their eyes before they laughingly answered (it was all in good fun, too, because sometimes they knew the answer but had trouble getting the right words to tell me) if it was something basic that they'd known since the nursery, or get uncomfortable because we weren't supposed to talk about fears or doubts or weakness or controversial interpretations. Coming from a "liberal" church could sometimes be more dangerous than being unsaved when it came to interpretation.
I was asked if I'd had my quiet time that day. A lot.

So, I learned to lie.

It was safer. It saved time. It made other people happy.

I got the "right" version of the Bible. A man named Ryrie was easier to find than I thought.
I learned that the New Testament "T" books are alphabetical and/or longest to shortest.
I looked up words when I got home instead of bringing them up at the time.
I didn't mention my record purchases much, either.
I asked the right kind of questions, which didn't take too terribly long to grasp, and people commented on how much I was "growing spiritually." I replaced, "Noah got drunk?!" with "If that's what Jesus did, how do we do that now?" You'd be amazed at how others notice that subtle change.
I learned the there were good scholars and bad scholars. Same for politicians.
I said I'd had my quiet times so much that if the askers had paid attention to the answers, I'd likely have set a record for a high schooler having the most consecutive quiet times ever.

Please don't misunderstand me. It wasn't the fault of the guys in my study. It wasn't the fault of the people in my church. They all meant well. They all cared about me...dare I say even loved me. They all wanted my spiritual growth to happen. But I picked up on subtle nuances and codes in my new tribe. They had no idea what an outsider was picking up, and I wanted to know Christ, and this seemed like the best way.

Then I met Charles. The guy that would disciple me all through the university years.

Charles asked me a lot of questions.

Like, "Why?"
Or, "Who told you that?"
Or, "Are you sure that's in the Bible?"
Or, "Where?"
Or, "Why didn't you ask that question at Bible study two nights ago?"

And he shared with me a saying that I've never forgotten. While other ministries at college went on these elaborate ski trips for "evangelistic outreach" our goofy little ministry went to farms in rural Georgia and prayed and asked hard questions. Late one night after a few games of basketball, Charles and I were talking about our spiritual lives. I don't remember specifics on that, but I remember this word for word:

"Brent, you know something? I can fake being a Christian better than most people can be one. And that thought terrifies me."

I'm sure I said something to deny that he was a fake Christian in any sense of the word as a reply. One, because I don't like dead spaces in conversation unless I cause them, and two, I didn't like the reality of fake Christianity. I'd been there. Charles spent an awful lot of time pointing us to Scripture and teaching us what an authentic walk looked like some 1900 years after the books were written on the subject...and I didn't want anything else other than a genuine relationship with the God of the Universe.

And the conversation after that went somewhere in the direction of Charles feeling the responsibility (I think he used the word "steward" which I had to go look up later--old habits die hard) before God for our discipleship and he knew that he would reproduce what he was. Hence, if Charles was fake, we'd be fake.

Now, there has to be some truth to that. He had Matthew 10: 24 & 25 to back it up.

And I don't want to deny personal responsibility in that. He could've walked authentically and we could've faked it.

But there's a truth all around that reality that I learned in my 19 years: You will reproduce what you are.

Now, I don't mean that in a "micro" sense. Such as in my case, you won't have an army of long-haired, tattooed, Mississippi Delta blues loving, baseball watching, disc golfers. It's funny because I've been told I have a tendency to draw "edgy" kids when most students in my ministry are wonderfully "normal." They clean up nice.

I mean that in a "macro" sense. If you focus on the things that tend to be measurable, like quiet time duty, or what movies/music/television they're into, or political issues, or what questions are "okay," or what clothes to wear...

...that's what you'll get.

But if you point them to Christ (the One found in Scripture, not the cartoon one American suburbia has neutered) and teach them to abide in Him and His Word...

...they'll be authentic. And revolutionary. And loving.

Because that's who you really are in Him. And who He really is in you. Anything else is trifling with God.

And I don't want to trifle with God with the students under my stewardship.

I won't fake this...and more on that tomorrow.