Getting It
When I was working with students in campus ministry, one thing my staff and I would talk about is which students “get it.” In other words, the student understood what it meant to follow Jesus. Most students came to us with Christian backgrounds, but most either believed Christianity meant having a certain set of beliefs and living a moral life, or that they had said a prayer for salvation when they were children or teens. Very rarely did they arrive on campus with the understanding that being a Christian meant Jesus being Lord of all aspects of their lives and living accordingly. Most were content to live their lives according to their will but claim to be followers of Jesus.
During the course of their time as students, some would begin to grasp what it truly meant to surrender their lives to the Lord. They would change their priorities in life, repent from sin, and begin to mature as believers. Sadly, others remained much the same throughout their collegiate careers. Which do you think brought the most joy and encouragement to me and my staff over the years? If you said those who got it, you would be correct. We continued to love on and pray for the others, but the ones who got it were a joy to watch in their transformation and impact on others, and an incentive to continue in our ministry to college students.
Because I was in campus ministry for most of my adult life, I never thought of this concept of “getting it” would carry over into my current consulting ministry; yet my experience at three different conventions where I exhibited has proved the concept applies outside the college realm. Hundreds of people walked past my booth at each convention, some barely even noticing me. Others would glance over long enough to look at what was on the table and then move on. Still others would stop and ask what UpStream Ministries is, but then quickly walk on after I briefly explained its purpose. However, there were some who stopped, listened, and asked questions. The conversations were rich and these people got it; that is, they understood why I am doing what I am doing and encouraged me to keep at it because, in their words, it is desperately needed. Some took materials I had on the table, and some bought my book, Letters from Downstream.
What is similar in both the college realm and the adult Christian realm is that both are shaped by the church system from which they emerge and/or continue to be a part of. When you seek to challenge that system, mostly you’ll get blank looks or pushback. Most people fail to understand what you’re talking about or push back against you because you are a threat to what they’ve always believed or done. To say to the church world that what we’re doing to raise kids spiritually is not very effective, as the research has shown for many years, and to call for major change is hard for many to contemplate and a threat to others.
It is similar to what Jesus experienced. He faced a religious system whose leaders were threatened by him, and many of whom participated in this system failed to grasp what he was trying to teach. He put it this way:
No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins (Mark 2:21-22).
New ways of doing things require new approaches, or as I wrote last week, a paradigm shift. What I am saying is if we are to raise our children to have a lifelong commitment to Jesus, we have to have parents take the lead in discipling them as the Bible instructs (Deuteronomy 6:6-9; Deuteronomy 11:18-21), and the church needs to train them how to do that. The current model that is practiced almost exclusively by local churches—getting parents to bring their kids to the children’s and youth ministries—is not very effective, with at least more than half leaving the faith after they graduate from high school, and the remainder with mostly a shallow faith.
It is time we change the wineskins, because the new wine proclaimed by the Scriptures is not a good fit for the wineskins of most churches today. We need to discover what will work and I am so thankful for those who get it and are open to change. They are an encouragement to me to keep plowing ahead. I just hope that in the months and years to come, there will be many, many more.
© Jim Musser 2023 All Scripture references are from the New International Version, 2011.
