Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me
In today’s society, one of the biggest challenges that is facing Christians is how to keep teens interested in following the Lord. Face it, High School is not exactly friendly to kids that are different , and in a country that is doing its level best to get Jesus out of its schools it is no wonder that once children become teenagers they seem to forget everything that they learned about being a Christian as children and revert back to the popular culture that is in their face every waking minute.
Of course, this does not apply to all teens. There are some that have managed to maintain a strong relationship with the Lord as they have grown and have entrusted unto him the difficulties that they face when they go out into the world. These are the young men and women that are a driving force in their churches and help to keep their youth group meetings full and their fellow Christians excited.
Unfortunately, it is unto the shoulders of these precious individuals that the challenge of bringing other teens to God must fall. Teenagers do not want to hear about how they should live their lives from the pastors or the deacons of the church; after all, these individuals are adults. Adults do not truly understand what it is like to be a teenager, and if they wanted an adult to tell them what to do they would go home and talk to their parents.
Teens, does this sound familiar? You know it’s true. For a teenager struggling to assert their independence in today’s crazy world the concept of handing control of their life over to someone else is ludicrous-and when you mention that you want them to hand control of said life over to a God that may or may not have created the world (according to science), who might have come to earth but did so thousands of years ago and has not been seen since (that anyone can prove) and who might play a large role in their afterlife but makes no promises about their life on Earth other than if they can bring people in to worship him they will be richly rewarded (the how and the why are never clearly spelled out, and how does this make them any different from travelling salesmen?) it is no wonder that they often look at Christians as though they are crazy and promptly proceed to walk away.
Therefore, it is upon the shoulders of these teenage Christian role models that the responsibility for their conversion must rest. They are simply not going to listen to anyone else. Does this mean that they should stand in the halls of their high school and preach that anyone who doesn’t follow the Lord is going to go straight to hell? No. Not only will that probably get them suspended, it only takes one overly zealous Christian to guarantee that a non-believer turns away from the Lord for the rest of their life.
There are other, more subtle ways to get their attention. Wearing Christian clothing to school is one of them. Christian jewelry and clothing have not yet been banned from the halls of public schools, and with the latest designers doing their best to ensure that Christians can continue to show their faith while still being in fashion this is an excellent way for teens to show their faith. By wearing their Christian clothing and continuing to allow God to be a guiding light in their lives, teens can bring their peers to know the joys that they discovered so many years ago and prove to them that God is not just a God of yesterday, he is for today and tomorrow as well