I found out, recently, that a former youth was in a car accident. She sustained a broken hip, and while being in the hospital, is unable to care for her son. While checking in with her, she mentioned that she needed to get back to church. That she needed to quit drinking and focus on her family. Disclaimer: I am a words person. She may have meant Jesus, but something told me that she may still felt that her hope for change was misguided. Even by a little. So, while I love hearing the repentant heart of this young lady…wanting to change her life and better her family, I found myself at a loss of how to support her and direct her in her suffering. Because, in her mind…she needed to get back to church. What happened to getting back to Jesus? While I was able to encourage her that she can meet Jesus while in the hospital, the verbalizing that the church was to be the answer to her soul concerns bothered me. How did I mess this up, as a youth leader? Where did I go wrong with this “kid”? I know where. Truth is, in all the ‘good work’ I did on the Rez - and some of it did bear fruit - I have since realized I may have been guilty of pointing my teens more toward religious rhetoric and church tradition, rather than to Jesus. And that fact relays a deeper reality about myself than I would care to admit. I could be the most doctrinally sound person in speech, but we don’t necessarily preach what we teach. We preach what we live. The paradox about calling out hypocritical pastors is the matter that society has become frustrated when actions fail to match the words they profess. Even the hypocritical do practice what they preach. The hint of their true belief system lies in how they say something, as well as repeating certain themes they are impassioned about. This looking at the belief system of anyone is true for any Christian. For me, I learned that although Jesus saved me through His work on the cross, it was still important to prove this change in me by doing X, Y, and Z. “If I really loved God, I would _________…If I really loved Him, I wouldn’t do _________.” That coupled with an impoverished sense of self-esteem left me feeling like I had to do more to truly trust the love of God, as well as the people around me. To this day, I still struggle with believing I am unconditionally loved, when I do what is expected or do something wrong. I need to stop believing in the “Jesus+” mentality. I need this change, because I remain dependent on how much I can do. As a result, I am missing the essence of the gospel, and worse yet, I will lead others to do the same. As for this former student, I’m thankful that this car accident (where alcohol was a factor) is a wake-up call for her to change her life. I can’t minimize these moments, because I do know that God uses them to draw people near to Him. It is a sad reality that we seem to acknowledge our sin when we see its effect on others. We can hide it, deny it, even tolerate it - but when we see how our sin hurts others, we change. I am thankful that God is once again, knocking on her heart. That being said, I don’t want “church” to be the answer, and getting her life “better” be the aim. I want her to go directly to Jesus. HE needs to be the focus. I say this not only for my student, but for myself, as well. I know I have fallen into the trap of using Jesus’ name to bring solace to a broken world, and stopped short of helping them develop a trusting relationship with Him. I beckoned for disciplinary steps (i.e. “now that you are saved, start reading your Bible, praying and sharing your faith). And this is what I preached, because I practiced this myself. I believed that I was saved by grace, but had to live by works. I believed my worth was found in proving it, and subsequently, I influenced others to do the same. And this is the fruit of those actions: finding out my students think that merely going to church will fix what is wrong in their lives. Yet, in retrospect, there is a vicious cycle of my students falling in and out of church; falling in and out of trust with Jesus, because they have sought the Savior for the benefit of comforting a temporary pain, rather than the cure of their soul’s sinful demise. They have sought Jesus for making life better, but not to seek an intimate relationship. Something has to change, and it has to begin with me.
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