I recently received the Big Chap-ter, an email update from a good friend and youth evangelist Jim Chapman (or Big Chap as he’s affectionately, if ironically, known.) In one part, he observes that frequently he sees youth workers at camps and retreats who spend the week hanging out with the students who seem to have it all together, while students with challenging personalities and difficult problems sit alone on the margins. It led him to reflect:
It reminded me of how we get caught in that trap of gravitating to students that don’t make us work hard at ministry. This is easy to do, but opposite of Jesus’ approach. When we look at the ministry of Jesus He spent time with prostitutes, tax collectors, liars, and sinners. (Read the full article.)
Opposite of Jesus’ approach
That’s the line that really caught my attention. And I think it’s right on. How often do we avoid the messy and seek the easy, when Jesus calls us to the least of these? We rationalize, telling ourselves that we are doing ministry Jesus’ way, focusing on the Peter’s, James’ and John’s of our ministry, discipling those students with the natural charisma to become disciplers.
But we forget that before they met Jesus, Peter, James and John were neither natural leaders nor the cool kids in school. As fishermen, they were the kids who weren’t cool enough to get into school. Certainly they had not deemed worthy of selection to be talmadim, or disciples of a rabbi–at least not until Jesus found them along the shore of the Sea of Galilee plying their trade. It wasn’t natural leadership potential or charisma that made them prime candidates for discipleship. It was the time they spent with Jesus that qualified them to be leaders and disciplers. (Just ask the synagogue leaders — Acts 4:13.)
So, after whose pattern are you discipling: the rabbis of Capernaum who passed over the Sons of Thunder for Bet Talmud, or Jesus who reached out to those on the margins and made them ministers?
You can read the full article, and sign up to receive future editions of the Big Chap-ter yourself here.
Or check out Big Chap on the web.
As I mentioned in a post a few years back, every three years our youth group features a special series called True Love Waits. Actually, I said we did it every two years, but we have since transitioned to a three year cycle. The goal remains the same, to make sure we emphasize this subject and give every student the opportunity to make a True Love Waits pledge during their Junior High years. We’ve transitioned to a once-every-three cycle because we’ve also transitioned from a 7 & 8 to a 6-8 Junior High ministry.
