A great little piece from a guy who I loved meeting at CU last year...a voice worth listening to, especially due to how he and wife have lived what they write and say...
Close your eyes and imagine this…
Imagine if our culture was taken to the -nth degree, to its logical end.
Maybe Lady Gaga is president. Maybe digital devices hang in front of our faces, precluding any unmediated communication. Maybe our nations war over water. Maybe norms about intimacy and privacy have melted. And maybe our speech has deteriorated into grunts, slang, and chuckles.
If North American culture keeps it up, we could be in big trouble.
Our culture is infatuated with stars like Justin Bieber, and our top TV show is even called “American Idol.” We revel in Charlie Sheen “winning.” Our king is LeBron. Chatroulette and PostSecret spotlight our basest tendencies and hidden shames. College grades are inflated. Polar ice caps are melting. Our states are broke, and our nation is $14,421,378,214,947 in the red.
As consumers, we spend more than we make. Kids kill other kids. Yesterday, I heard the phrase “economic collapse” on the radio a few times. A friend of mine jokes that she’ll put her tent in our yard when it really hits the fan.
And that just may be in the United States. Think of international conflicts, malnutrition, malaria, HIV and AIDS, human trafficking, simple grinding poverty, and the vulnerable people (especially children) who take the brunt of it.
Holy smokes. I’m only 33, and I sound like a crotchety old man. My years overseas have held a lot of pain for me and for those near me. But I’m not a Chicken Little kind of guy — I do not despair.
Jesus came to this screwed up world. He died and rose to break the brokenness — of me, of you, of LeBron, of Gaga, and of the systems in which we swim. So I work to tell that Good News and to train up leaders for God, for good.
I work for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
We’ve served God for 70 years, now at 550 colleges and universities across the country. And God works through InterVarsity: By His grace, students and faculty members start following Jesus, the culture of institutions is shifted, and graduates head out to lead in every sector for Jesus, from education to business to medicine to technology to politics to families to nonprofits, and of course the Church.
InterVarsity alumni are leading all around the planet, along with our sister movements in the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.
Jesus has saved and redeemed us. And now we serve so that others have that same opportunity, and so that we give God the maximum glory in every sphere we touch.
The work of InterVarsity’s campus ministry doesn’t result in bunch of ignorant, pie-in-the-sky Pollyannas. Rather, we have trained and sent hundreds of thousands of thoughtful, talented leaders into society (and around the world), with God and His priorities in the Bible guiding them.
Last week, I met with colleagues from InterVarsity and World Vision ACT:S about ways we can work together to encourage and equip the next generation of leaders who will follow Jesus, share Him with others, and seek His righteousness and justice.
And that is even better than President Gaga.
No comments:
Post a Comment