I grew up in the grunge era.
Grunge was characterised by a subculture turning away from the slick, lavish, extravagant styles of previous eras. Although it very much started as a small pocket of society it became more and more mainstream as bands like Nirvana started to dominate the music scene. Grunge took a sort of diy approach to music, fashion, design, and entertainment, often it all seemed a little thrown together and muddled through.
If the 90s passed you by or you weren’t even born in the 90s you might be wondering what on earth grunge has to do with discipleship? Recently as I reflected on some of the hallmarks of my micro generation, xennials, I realised the DIY ethos of grunge, very much influenced my approach to life, shaping a mindset of openness to figure things out as I go, and gave me the courage not to wait until I have become an expert or necessarily fully mastered a craft, before I “go public”. The heroes of the grunge culture inspired thousands of us just to give stuff a go!
Here is what I think, the generation that follows in our footsteps don’t need christian leadership gurus who seem removed and unobtainable, they need someone who can inspire them to have a go. Jesus’ commission is not just for professionals in ministry, in His Kingdom everyone gets to play. So the idea? … What is in your hand?
A few years ago we used to take our boys to what our church called “reach days.” They were days when our youth used to disciple our boys in how to give away God’s love. It was simple. Our young people would sit our kids down for a few minutes and hand them a piece of paper, put on some music and ask them to wait for a few minutes and then draw anything they felt God might put on their heart to look out for that afternoon. After a short while of earnest scribbling they would gather them into small groups and ask them to describe what they had drawn. I remember one week our oldest drew a parrot and another I think a bike. Next our youth would hand out bowls of chocolate and we’d all head out to the streets. While we were out we would keep an eye out for anything that seemed to connect with any of our kids impressions they had drawn. The afternoon not long after he’d drawn a bike we had arrived in the downtown area and found a lady on crutches waiting next to a bike. We offered her some chocolate and prayer. Accepting both our youth led our kids as they prayed for this ladies knee and she left visibly moved and deeply appreciative. The week of the parrot after unsurprisingly seeing no-one all afternoon downtown with a parrot my wife eventually made her way with our boys to the local pet shop in search of a parrot. When they arrived we found the pet shop indeed had parrots and the owner of the pet shop seemed very excited to see us. He explained that the previous month a group of young people and children had popped into his store and prayed for his hearing as for many years he had hearing difficulty which over the following days and few weeks completely changed, his hearing had been completely restored! He was so grateful and it was a wonderful encouragement for our young people and children to hear their courage was so welcome.
Mobilising our children and young people was never meant to be any kind of gimmick or interruption of their childhood but an opportunity for them to come alive as they discover carrying the culture of His Kingdom is not exclusive to professional post grad ministers, but Jesus’ invitation of participation is open to all, fishermen, tax collectors, activists, even accountants!