a revolution of honesty

If we’re ever going to get this right, if we’re ever going to live this life as it was meant to be lived, we have to ask the tough questions. We have to dig deep and be honest with ourselves, even if it hurts… If we could pull back the curtain to reveal what is really going on, we would see what Zeke saw: A war-torn world filled with death. But there’s good news. God doesn’t like that ending, so he’s writing a new one. And he wants to bring you back to life. But first you have to let go of the things that are killing you.

 

– Excerpt from “The War” [last week’s Zeke lesson]

 

“What is killing you?” That is how our 2012-13 student ministry began – with a question. It is easy, much too easy, for us to point out the flaws in the youth generation, to finger their guilt, to write them off for their failings. What is much more difficult – and, I have found, much more constructive – is to guide them in reaching their own conclusions. And that begins by pointing the finger in the mirror. In the words of Jesus, “First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye” (Matthew 7:5, NLT). To be transparent, to confess our own humanity is, to the Millennial Generation, to earn respect.

 

Demonstrating the brand of candor that Jesus endorsed gives young people permission to be honest themselves. Teens are imitators; they do what they see us doing. Our concession to needing a Savior might very well coincide with their first step of faith. It empowers them to make their own confession. As Paul has it, “It is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved” (Romans 10:10, NLT; emphasis mine). Belief and coming clean are inseparable.

 

And so, before an audience of nearly 50 teens, I told my story – the insecurities, hopes, and missteps of my own teenage years. You could have heard a pin drop. The rambunctious, ADD generation was engaged. Trending forums term this “narrative evangelism,” but it is not about being trendy. To put it simply, it is about meeting young people where they are with the Gospel of Jesus.

 

Our vision at Zeke37 – to breathe life into an asphyxiated generation – might rightly be deemed revolutionary in its stance and scope. But then again, Jesus had radical leanings. It certainly wasn’t conventional to preach a message of forgiveness in an eye-for-an-eye society, nor was it orthodox for God-on-foot to mingle with sinners. Yet those drastic measures set in motion the righting of an upside-down world. So following his precedent, we reach out to the unchurched, the underchurched, and the overchurched, and we invite them to be honest. “What is killing you?” That is more than a question; it is an invitation to be resuscitated, to breathe in the Spirit of life and begin living.

 

Oh, how I await the day when I see what Ezekiel’s saw: “They all came to life and stood up on their feet – a great army of them” (37:10, NLT). Friends, that day is, by the grace of God, drawing near…