Love is in the air...

As Valentine’s Day has just passed, it got me thinking about love. At this time of year, you seemed to be surrounded by love hearts, roses and cheesy poetry… and it gets a bit sickening. Well, that could just be me being bitter, but I think love should be celebrated all year round, rather than a day being set aside as an excuse to tell someone how you feel about them. At home, Valentine’s Day is a pretty big deal. My mum goes to ‘Marks and Spencer’s’ (which only happens on special occasions) and checks out the Valentine’s day deals; my step dad writes cards for me and my sisters from “our secret admirer” even though at eighteen, you would have thought I had worked it out by now; and my younger sisters come home from school with stacks of cards from various boys. I guess it is quite exciting to know that someone thinks you’re special, but why not be made to feel like that all the time? There are so many verses in the Bible telling us how much God loves us…
“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands” – Deuteronomy 7: 9.
How awesome is that!? God promises us his love to a thousand generations and all he expects in return is to “keep his commands”. And even if we do mess up, he is still going to love us anyway! Proverbs 10: 12 says “love covers all wrongs” and I think this is so powerful, to know that no matter what we have done, God is going to love us just as much, and he will do all he can to get us back on the right path. He also teaches us to love each other, as the second commandment found in Matthew 22: 39 is “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’.” It doesn’t specify as particular day on which we have to show each other that we love one another, we should do it all the time!
So today, and every day, think about the people that surround you. Think about how special they are to you, and tell them! God loves us and gave up everything he loves so that we could live and love each other.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3: 16.

Charli Wood

Parlez Vous Christian?

“Eh up me duck, that cob looks peng!”
Even though I only moved to Nottingham from two hours up the motorway, I still had trouble at first working out what on earth people were saying sometimes. But that’s how language works isn’t it? Every town, every generation, every culture have their own words and phrases.

I love it that Nottingham has it’s own identity and part of that identity is it’s language (although I still reckon it’s weird to call someone ‘duck’…). The young people have their own dialect too which I’m starting to pick up and occasionally I’m even deemed cool enough to use it. But whether we use the ‘latest’ words or not, the fact remains that young people are speaking a different language, so what does that mean for sharing the gospel with them?

Youth for Christ’s mission statement is ‘taking the good news relevantly to every young person’ so to be relevant, we need to talk the same language. And we do, but it’s more than just replacing ‘not’ with ‘ain’t’ and taggingin ‘init’ on the end of everything we say. You can’t say to a young person “If you confess your sins to God, you’ll be saved by grace through the sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ”. They don’t get it – even Shakespeare makes more sense to them. So ditch the jargon and speak the gospel in English. Simply yes?

I’d say nothing ever is. Eugene H. Peterson, author of The Message says, “The original books of the Bible were not written in formal language” and so “every generation needs to keep the language of the gospel message current, fresh, and understandable—the way it was for its very first readers”. And I agree entirely. But even in The Message ‘grace’, ‘salvation’ and ‘sacrifice’ are regular guests, so are we right to omit them entirely from our conversation or talks?

What happens when young people start reading the Bible and come across all our Christian jargon? I fear the Bible will feel irrelevant and the gospel message they thought they’d understood once again becomes a stranger. So, as the James wisely advises us, we need to watch our words!

Becci Raine

Discipleship

Recently I have been thinking about discipleship. This is because in the job I do I get fairly excited about those who come to faith but massively passionate about disciples. This is partly because since I started looking into youth work I have had Matthew 28:19 imprinted in my mind (and heart). Jesus clearly instructs us to make disciples in all nations not just convert them. There are two things that I have been wrestling with when working for Christian youth work organisations that are not assigned to, or part of, a local church.
When someone converts where do they go?
I love local church and do my best to support them, however when you have one young person come to Christ and there are 6 churches in one area how do you help the young person choose a church they would like to attend and be nurtured in and how do you do it without seemingly supporting one church with favour to the others? It’s easy to slate the church saying its stuffy, old fashioned irrelevant. However I feel the church (meaning the whole church) is great and beautiful. The only issue I have really found is one which comes out of something good. The church is great at looking after its own so when someone is converted that isn't part of the existing Church, most people ask how do we integrate them into church? I really don't like the word integrate, it speaks of shaping and moulding a person into the ways of the church (the way we do things round here). The God I know wants us to understand that we are made in the image of God. Calling us to participate in the body of the church, bringing the gifts and talents God has given us and utilising them in such a way that edifies the church and glorifies God.
Secondly, because discipleship is what I see as my calling (work) how do I do it with friends and family?
I have lots of family who think I am crazy for doing this job but they still need to know the lord. After I have been at work all day or at the end of the week when I call my mum how do I disciple her when all I feel like is having an easy nice chat not one that makes me do my “work” with family. It’s easy to give one liners or tell a story of what God has done with someone but to actually disciple family and friends is hard. Even more so when its these relationships I go to for rest comfort and being looked after.

Ant Stevens