A Note from Josh – College & Center Newsletters, November 2018

My daughter just turned one, which means she has been crawling and even recently took her first steps! In the midst of her new found mobility, my three year old son loves to tell her what she isn’t allowed to touch, play with, or even go near. We have to continually remind him, “Jameson, she is just exploring. She is allowed to explore.”

Rob Bell writes in his book, What We Talk About WHen We Talk About God, “…there is a growing sense among a growing number of people that when it comes to God, we’re at the end of one era and the start of another, an entire mode of understanding and talking about God is dying as something new is being birthed.” I work with young people, and I have had a front row seat to this growing sense in a growing number of people. I have witnessed people’s desire to explore.

So, what are we talking about when we talk about God? For some, someone told them about God, Jesus, and the Christian faith when they were young, like maybe three or four years old, and the expectation is that they were supposed to keep talking about God the same exact way for the rest of their life. It is as if we invite people to explore God on a reservation, ignoring the outside world. Is that really exploring?

It seems as though people are tired of exploring God on a reservation, that is to say, with unnecessary boundaries of what they can ask, who they can read, and the language they may begin to use. Now, to be certain, I don’t think that means people are tired of talking about God. I believe people are hungry to talk about the God they grew up praying to, singing to, and serving in the name of. When I tell people I am a pastor, more often than not, I am gifted with the person’s faith story. They grew up in church. They went on a mission trip. Something happened. The church may have failed them, or maybe something far less dramatic, like college, or a nine to five job or a couple of children. Ultimately, I hear them saying, “I grew up, and the reservation felt small, and inauthentic to life, so I decided to wander elsewhere.”

It may be problematic for you if you are talking about God the same way you were when you were four. Perhaps you may use the same words, or the same sentiment, but maybe in order to capture the love, hope, resurrection and life of Jesus, whatever it is that you can’t seem to let go of, or won’t seem to let go of you, you need to talk about God differently. That is okay.

Of course, none of this is to say that children are talking about God incorrectly, and afterall, Matthew quotes Jesus saying, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” But I want to say, some of us need to explore. After all, despite what my son may say to his sister, we are allowed to explore.

Blessings,

Josh

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