8:00 on a Saturday night
8:00 on a Saturday night.
What would you normally be doing? Where would you be? Maybe a movie, or in front of the TV? Visiting friends or family, a late dinner, on the road somewhere? 8:00 on Saturday night isn’t prime time at my house, it’s unwinding time. The girls are in bed (probably) and the house has been tidied up (probably) and I’m ready to just relax and be quiet (probably…not).
But this Saturday night was different. First of all, I wasn’t at home. Lori and I took four girls from church to a weekend youth event called Acquire the Fire. It’s a youth rally. It’s a call to youth to make a deeper commitment to Christ. It’s a day and a half of teaching and drama and music and worship. And, of course, it’s fun.
By 8:00 on Saturday night I was ready to go home. The teaching had been great, the worship was incredible, the bands…well, the kids liked the bands (hardcore I don’t mind so much but I just don’t get hip-hop). We were maybe thirty hours into this weekend and I was just plain tired. But the speaker, Joel Johnson, had just challenged us to make a commitment to put aside all the fakeness in our lives, to stand up and be real. We’re fighting a war against the powers of hell and the casualties are real. We can’t just act like nothing’s going on, like nothing is different, like we aren’t different. If we are followers of Jesus Christ, we need to stand up and stand out and speak up and speak out. We need to grow deep and strong roots in God’s word and we need to treat people like we would treat Jesus (“for whatever you have done to the least of these, my brothers, you have done to me…”). It doesn’t come across as challenging and as powerful in translation, I realize that, but what happened next was amazing.
Joel challenged us to make the commitment real, to confess everything before God and to promise to stand up and be real. He told us that if we were willing to make that commitment that we could kneel at our chairs. Just turn around in your seats and make the seat your altar and make this commitment real. We sat in the row in front of the four girls, so I listened and, sure enough, at least some of them were moving from their seats to kneel at the makeshift altar and make that deeper commitment. Lori and I turned in our seats and knelt together as well and prayed the same prayer – because we need to do it, too. But then I peeked around the arena. I couldn’t see a single face. There were maybe seven-thousand teenagers in that place, and every one of them was making that commitment to let go of the fake stuff, to let go of sin, and to just be real in front of God and the world. Then we got to pray together as a youth group. We prayed for each other, for real things, not just those polite “God bless Aunt Sophie” kind of prayers, but real prayers. There were tears and there were hugs and there was a lot of encouragement and hopefulness in those moments. Then we worshipped together and the four girls locked arms with each other and sang praises to God. And so for a few minutes we got to know what it was like to have God show up… No, we got to know what it was like to step up into God’s presence as thousands of people gave Him glory and honor. It remains for me a powerful moment.
Not bad for 8:00 Saturday evening.
What would you normally be doing? Where would you be? Maybe a movie, or in front of the TV? Visiting friends or family, a late dinner, on the road somewhere? 8:00 on Saturday night isn’t prime time at my house, it’s unwinding time. The girls are in bed (probably) and the house has been tidied up (probably) and I’m ready to just relax and be quiet (probably…not).
But this Saturday night was different. First of all, I wasn’t at home. Lori and I took four girls from church to a weekend youth event called Acquire the Fire. It’s a youth rally. It’s a call to youth to make a deeper commitment to Christ. It’s a day and a half of teaching and drama and music and worship. And, of course, it’s fun.
By 8:00 on Saturday night I was ready to go home. The teaching had been great, the worship was incredible, the bands…well, the kids liked the bands (hardcore I don’t mind so much but I just don’t get hip-hop). We were maybe thirty hours into this weekend and I was just plain tired. But the speaker, Joel Johnson, had just challenged us to make a commitment to put aside all the fakeness in our lives, to stand up and be real. We’re fighting a war against the powers of hell and the casualties are real. We can’t just act like nothing’s going on, like nothing is different, like we aren’t different. If we are followers of Jesus Christ, we need to stand up and stand out and speak up and speak out. We need to grow deep and strong roots in God’s word and we need to treat people like we would treat Jesus (“for whatever you have done to the least of these, my brothers, you have done to me…”). It doesn’t come across as challenging and as powerful in translation, I realize that, but what happened next was amazing.
Joel challenged us to make the commitment real, to confess everything before God and to promise to stand up and be real. He told us that if we were willing to make that commitment that we could kneel at our chairs. Just turn around in your seats and make the seat your altar and make this commitment real. We sat in the row in front of the four girls, so I listened and, sure enough, at least some of them were moving from their seats to kneel at the makeshift altar and make that deeper commitment. Lori and I turned in our seats and knelt together as well and prayed the same prayer – because we need to do it, too. But then I peeked around the arena. I couldn’t see a single face. There were maybe seven-thousand teenagers in that place, and every one of them was making that commitment to let go of the fake stuff, to let go of sin, and to just be real in front of God and the world. Then we got to pray together as a youth group. We prayed for each other, for real things, not just those polite “God bless Aunt Sophie” kind of prayers, but real prayers. There were tears and there were hugs and there was a lot of encouragement and hopefulness in those moments. Then we worshipped together and the four girls locked arms with each other and sang praises to God. And so for a few minutes we got to know what it was like to have God show up… No, we got to know what it was like to step up into God’s presence as thousands of people gave Him glory and honor. It remains for me a powerful moment.
Not bad for 8:00 Saturday evening.
Comments