Young People At My Church

Young People At My Church
(Today's Young People)

I am thirty-four years of age, and rightly classified as a young person. As yet I have no gray hairs. I am a member of an evangelical church in Kingston where I take active part.

Today, I began thinking about a young man that I met sometime ago. He was the result of a teenage pregnancy and died tragically at about my age. I really do not know much about his life except for the period just before he died.

There were some good things about this young man. He apparently possessed a deep faith in God the Father, prayed daily, and talked about the scriptures with his close friends. He was quite down-to-earth, not stuck-up or conceited, would chat and laugh, and would often tell stories.

But what bothered me about his situation was that he was not liked by the church leaders. It seems to me that if his faith was genuine, then he would have easily gotten along with other people of faith. That is my understanding of scripture. Yet the leaders had to be constantly watching and monitoring him, always having to put him in his place, and forced to warn others about getting mixed up with him. He was just your typical "hard ears" person concerning their advice, and was almost always doing exactly opposite to what they wanted. They were right in knowing that if he continued the way he was going, he would come to a tragic end.

To top it all off, this young man did something really shocking. I must admit that I did not witness it for myself but learned from rather reliable sources. He told off the leaders, ridiculing them and repeatedly calling them hypocrites and other uncomplimentary names. It was unbelievable, and apparently downright disrespectful.

As a young person, I am amazed by that kind of behaviour. I really don't think I could do that. Does that accomplish any good after all?

I suppose I can't really blame my church leaders for not trusting young people. It seems as though some of our youths are really taken in by the same spirit that this young man had. They seem to be following his path rather than that of the church leadership. It is really a shame that they are just bent, unrelenting on being like this young man--even after his demise. It is as if he is still around influencing them.

When I am at church or elsewhere and hear my church leaders talk about how difficult and troublesome young people are, I really understand because some of them really remind me of this young man. His church leaders had to write him off, troublesome as he was. My church leaders would have to write him off too. I wonder if they ever met him!