Okay. In today’s quick podcast, I answer a single question that is being posed by some young people, which is: “Since all organized religion is problematic in one way or another, should we just walk away from it and have a private religion?”
What is Private Religion?
Private religion is sort of removing ourselves from a communal basis in our faith journey and choosing just to have what we might call privatism—me keeping my personal ideas about faith and religion private. This is one option, and many people are suggesting it. In this quick video. I give my reasons why I don’t think that’s the best path forward and why I believe it is very much possible to re-JESUS everything on a small and larger level.
This past weekend, I was at the Emerging Leaders Gathering at Lee university, it was really exciting to see young people who were passionate about serving Jesus and wanting to do it in a communal way. Hats off to Mark Swank and others at Church of God World Missions, who have been leading this charge to raise up a new generation of missional young adults in a denomination that is over 100 years old.
Time really is a factor in any organization, whether it’s a family or a faith-based mission. Time allows lots of cultural currents and trends and strong personalities to emerge and change the course of the original group. Sometimes this is healthy evolution and sometimes not so healthy, but what it always is is entropy, because age slows things down, makes them more institutional, and much less likely to bear fruit.
That’s why the story of Abraham is such a miracle: an old man and woman had a baby. It’s just as remarkable for an old church to have a youth movement.
In both cases, this was only accomplished with great intentionality.
God wanted this baby, and Abraham and Sarah had to want this baby and bend their life around having future generations flow from them.
We have to care about things like this, or they’ll never happen.
I really appreciate the work of Dr. Propes, Mark Swank, and many others in generating some momentum among young people regarding global missions.
Hope you enjoy the video. i’d love to hear your ideas too.
Let’s keep this discussion going. Let’s read Jesus everything in our lives. There’s so much life in Jesus, and we can all have it, and we can all continue to bear fruit even in our mature years.
Every blessing!
Chuck
