Sabbath Devotional :: Bridging to Christ

Recently I was talking with a group of young people who are struggling to find any personal relevance in religion. All of them grew up in homes where their parents were believers and active members of the Church, and almost all of them have continued to be engaged with religious activities. For now, they are still showing up, but they just aren’t feeling connected, inspired or engaged. These are such good people, thinking deeply about what it looks like to live a life of meaning, and yet they are wrestling and weary.

At the moment I mostly listened, but ever since, that conversation has been taking up a fair amount of space in the back of my brain. I have been wondering and worrying about how we can build a life of religious purpose and belief in our current environment. By the time I was their age, my soul had connected deeply with the message of Christianity and I could echo Psalms 31: 23-24 “O love the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.”

Why is that message, a message that has inspired millions of people over thousands of years, not resonating with them? I know my own journey and how I got to a place of belief that was sufficient to lay the foundations of a life of religious participation, but is my pathway relevant (or even accessible) to them?

I’d propose that every generation of believers has an obligation to honestly gauge the gap between the actual world young people live in and the promised land of Christianity. Then we as old believers must all work together to build a bridge spanning that distance that new believers can cross. Even though the destination remains the same as it did in generations past, the bridge is very likely going to look quite different than the one that got each of us there. Accepting this requires deep humility and building new bridges will require sacrifice.

My thoughts are still inchoate and I don’t have any grand plan to offer you, but I wanted to share two trains of thought and then ask that you also share what you are thinking and doing to share the gospel with younger people.

First, I have been thinking about a thought someone threw out in passing during a religion and foreign policy conference I attended a few weeks ago. “If we want peace, we need to work together on tangible things. We find common places in what we do with our hands.” I am realizing that in a digitally dominant world, I need to be much more purposeful in finding ways for my children and other young people to work with their hearts, bodies and hands to build something together. In an increasingly virtual world, where fewer and fewer people read deeply, I am wondering if early access points to the gospel needs to be a little less literary and a little more physical. What would happen for a whole emerging generation, if those of us already here committed to the restored gospel began the physical effort of building Zion and brought them along?

Second, I have been considering a beautiful quote by C. K. Chesterton: “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and not tried.” I want the generations who follow me to believe and have access to the power of Christian belief and the restored gospel. If they aren’t seeing it as a powerful and living force, is that because I have talked the talk but not walked the walk? Are the people around me not seeing its power because I am unwilling to make visible the power that comes when saints sacrifice to live it to the fullest?

What would it really look like to “try” Christianity? Does it all happen in one on one human interactions? Or does it require building systems that encourage human reactions that characterize? What is the character of a Christian? What are her virtues? How can we better expose people to Christianity less as an idea or doctrine, and more as a lived experience? A way to order all our relationships?

I warned you that I wasn’t going to have answers. But I think these are decent questions to use as we start thinking about new bridges to the promised land. What are you doing to build those bridges? What are your experiences with younger believers? How can we help them find their way to a close and lasting relationship with Christ and a community of His disciples? I would love to hear your thoughts.

We are followers of the Good Shepherd, we have the guidance of latter-day prophets and we are believers in the good news of the gospel. I am hopeful that with the Lord’s help we can build the bridge.