A theme reflection for the 2024 Young Adult Conference by Lauren Flora
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for God. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what God wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” ~Romans 12:1-2, The Message
It’s countercultural to live like Jesus, to resist conforming to the patterns and cultures surrounding us in our everyday lives. It’s easy to get caught up in the superficial customs and groups trying to get us to conform and strip us of our individuality. They entice us to adopt worldly thinking and behaviors; along the way we can lose sight of our own ideas and beliefs. We fall into a pattern of chasing things like power, status, and wealth instead of focusing on living out our vocation and individual identity. How do we recognize these forces threatening our values and instead hold firm to our beliefs?
This year at Young Adult Conference, we will learn about what it means to live a radical, counter-cultural life. We will dive into conversations about how we can focus our attention on God rather than ourselves. As Christians, we are called to be transformed by God and to embrace attitudes that align with “living like Jesus.” He wants us to live for him and resist conforming to the patterns of the world. Join us as we discuss allowing God to transform us. Living a countercultural life means placing our hope in something which cannot be removed. God wants us to be leaders, to find and keep our individuality, and to be change-makers in this world!
This reflection was originally featured in the spring issue of Bridge produced by Youth and Young Adult Ministries. Pray for those who are traveling to and attending Young Adult Conference this weekend (May 24-26) at Shepherd’s Spring Camp near Sharpsburg, Md. Support Discipleship and Leadership Formation staff who host events to grow courageous disciples at www.brethren.org/givediscipleship.