Are you a system-bucker? Do you challenge every ‘why’ with a ‘why not?’ Do you ever find yourself ‘standing up to the man?’
Some youth pastors are system-buckers. I don’t know if it comes from working with teenagers (who have an anti-system gene in their DNA until age 26) or if it’s an innate response to finding ourselves at the bottom (or under) every totem pole, or if we are just masochistic fools who abhor coloring within the lines. Regardless, we buck the system.
And system-buckers aren’t always a bad thing. Consider some of the famous system-buckers and enjoy good company: Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Abraham Lincoln, ShadrachMeshach&Abednego, Jesus….all buckers of said-system. Sometimes it’s a good thing to challenge the status quo. These people had a cause worth fighting for. They had a history to change. They had principles worth defending.
Is that the kind of challenger you are? Do you challenge because the greater purpose beckons your resolve? Or do you fight because of blood-lust?
I don’t have a specific ‘boy-Darren-sure-screwed-up-that-one’ story…at least not one that I’m willing to share….but in the essence of embracing fallibility, I can confess that I have – at times – blurred the lines of fighting for principle and just fighting, period. It’s an inherent danger that comes with bucking the system. I have to continually check myself. Am I fighting this because it will make a kingdom-difference? Or am I fighting this because ________________________? (I want to win. I started and I can’t stop now. I don’t care for the person I’m fighting with. They’re wrong – and I need them to know it. The system is just stupid and pointless.) Fill in the blank. I’ve erroneously used all the latter statements as reasons (and sometimes even pawned them off as God-given reasons.)
Some issues are worth fighting, bleeding, and dying over. Give your last ounce to sit at the front of the bus. Break the bonds of religious slavery. Stand up to the King.
But don’t shed your blood in vain. If it’s about anything less than the Kingdom….the future…..your purpose – you might want to reconsider.
Like this:
Like Loading...
It’s the bedrock of most youth ministries….curriculum. No matter what we do, though, it always seems we have to ‘hone’ it to make it fit in our context, with our kids, to our vision.
Everyone's Called to Youth Ministry 