By Shawn Flory Replogle
Youth: I dunno [insert Leader name here], Christian’s can seem pretty hypocritical. Love your neighbor and all that, when I see the anger and ugly words Christians use in the world, well, I’m not sure I want to be a part of that.
Leader: Honestly, me either. Some of what Christians do and say in the world don’t seem like they portray a full picture of God. Like God should be contained or controlled. But, the God I see in the Bible is bigger than that, bigger than anything each of us can imagine. It helps me to remember that.
Youth: Hmm, I guess. I can see how easy it is to make God too small, fitting into our neat little boxes, falling under someone else’s labels. It doesn’t seem to be very easy to be Christian in a world like that. How do you stay?
Leader: Well I get discouraged sometimes. But I also remember I’m not the first person to live through challenging times. The church has been here before. The very earliest Christians faced very strong reactions to their attempts to be faithful to Jesus. Over the centuries there have always been groups of people who use the label “Christian” to collect worldly power. But at the same time there have always been at least as many Christians seeking to be faithful to Jesus in their own ways.
Youth: You mean like Alexander Mack over three hundred years ago?
Leader: That’s a great example!
Youth: Yeah, that’s such a powerful story. Eight young adults — men and women — choosing to follow Jesus by being baptized as adults and not being satisfied with the baptisms they didn’t choose as infants.
Leader: You are so right. It certainly wasn’t an easy choice. They faced the potential of serious punishment and really only escaped that because the ruling authority in Schwarzenau, Germany was sympathetic. Even other like-minded Christians were upset about what they had done. They thought those 8 young adults — who were not much older than you by the way — had made a very serious mistake. Their attempts to follow Jesus were questioned and challenged all the time. …
Youth: How did they not give up?
Leader: I think they believed in the story. They believed that the faithful choices of those who had come before them were worth something. They believed that it was important to read about Jesus, try to understand Jesus, and try to respond to the Jesus we meet in scripture.
Youth: We make Jesus complicated sometimes, don’t we?…
Leader: We really do.
Youth: …When really God isn’t asking us to do more than follow Jesus, to do what he did, hang out with those he hung out with, and say what he would have said. To take Jesus seriously.
Leader: Which might be simple, but is rarely easy.
Youth: But it’s our story, isn’t it?
Leader: Yep! It is our story.