The Dare To A Disillusioned Generation

Before I begin, I must say that if you can get past the first couple of lines you'll be good to go. But when you see the words "Dare You to Move," please do not quit reading this just because it is a title of an over-played song...

If you are a Switchfoot fan, or a music fan for that matter, you are most likely familiar with Switchfoot's hit song "Dare You to Move." Heck, if you've turned your car radio on in the past 4 years there is a 99.9% chance you have heard it. Back to the song later though...

I have had several conversations lately with different people over the past month, all on the same topic.

Thank God, the topic was not "Dare You To Move..."

The topic, I am sad to say, was on a not-so-used word anymore...that word being "disillusionment."

I have to say, I find it very odd, maybe providential, that this has been brought up by at least 6 different people in only one month's time, without any prodding from myself.

The people that spoke to me about this are all under the age of 25, are in college or recently graduated college, and are all professing believers in Christ...

What they are disillusioned over did not surprise me...they are disillusioned over hypocrisy...

American Church hypocrisy.

............................................

There's the answer to the question the American Church has been asking over the past few decades...why are our college students abandoning faith in Christ?

The answer isn't because we are young, dumb, sinful "adults" who just want to drink, do drugs, and have sex.

The answer is because of American Church hypocrisy.
Trust me, I'm one of those "punk college kids"....

I know...
Because I feel and think the same thing...

I work most Sundays, so I haven't been to Church much over the past few months. Scary as it is, I have accomplished more as far as helping to save the world stuff goes. I have actually grown closer to God being absent from the Church....and there is something seriously wrong with that.

Our churches here in America scream different gospels from different pulpits...
There's the "fire-n-brimstone" gospel...
There's the "tolerant" gospel...
Etc., etc., etc.....
And lastly there is the "prosperity" gospel...

Gulp.

Maybe it would be easier if Wal-Mart added a "purchase your own church aisle"...

Whatever the case may be...all of these churches in the Greater American Church say the same thing:

"Something is wrong with the world, and we must do something to fix it...."
But nothing or very little is ever done to fix it...

We college kids aren't as stupid as we act...we attended church with our parents growing up, we've sat through all the Sunday school classes, we've sang the "Jesus Loves Me This I Know" songs, we went to youth group, heck, a few of us even went on those summer mission trips...the few and far between ones at least.

We may not have seen it then, but we sure as hell see it now...
And its disillusioning, and very wrong...


Sure, there are other reasons why America's youth are leaving the Church in droves...but the main one is the hypocrisy we see.

And not every single Church in America falls under this category. I am sure that there are some who are doing a very good job, but those are few and far between.

A few of the people I have talked to have even gone so far as to say that secular America does more to fix the world than the Church does...a statement that seems to have some proof to back it up.
After all, college kids are known for speaking out on major social issues. But there is only so much we can do...

Almost all of the people I had this conversation with also asked a question:

"How can I help fix the world?"

Once again, we college kids are not completely naive. We know that there is something seriously wrong with the world. We also know that the American Church seems ignorant to it...the prosperity gospel apparently has brought us to that point...
But we are also not completely innocent in this either...we did walk away from the Church...

My answer to my fellow students, go back to church and speak your passion there. MAKE THE CHURCH LISTEN. As long as your passion has biblical support, the Church HAS to at least listen...

While America no longer takes us Christians seriously anymore, the Church still has a tremendous amount of wealth and influence. It took me a couple of months of prodding and pushing some buttons, but my church eventually gave a large sum of money to a Christian organization working to stop the genocide in Sudan. That money is making a difference there...

The Church WILL listen, even if they don't at first. We can be good at being annoying, so if that is what you must do, the do it...

My advice to the Church...before you go off on us college kids for being "crazy" and "out of control," remember how we got there...listening to a bunch of meaningless talk for years pushed us away.
If you want your college students back, kill the hypocrisy, not just for our sake, but for the sake of the name of the Lord...
Stop telling us every Sunday morning from the pulpit that the world is a bad place. We know that, let's work on fixing it now.

It is the right thing to do...
And it is the only option...

Maybe we should listen to that overplayed Switchfoot song one more time...Switchfoot "Dared us to move"...

Maybe its time we took the dare...

In Christ,
Hackett