Generation Next

As Christians it is easy to look around at the world and be discouraged about all the sin and darkness that the world has. More specifically I find it very frustrating as a Christian in America to see what America has become. We are a nation that was classified as a Christian nation, and now has become seemingly the opposite. Even among the people who still claim to be Christians in the United States today, there are again even fewer who actually live out their faith. It breaks my heart to hear what the world says about Christians. They do not think happy things about Christians, but instead first think of the negatives. Often when I am interacting with people who know I am a Christian and we begin to talk about our faith, I find that many people are shocked at the fact that I really try to have my faith affect my life. When I lived abroad with a house full of girls last fall, many of them were shocked to find out that I had never drank or done drugs and could not understand why. When I told them that it was because I was a Christian, they told me that they were too, or that they knew lots of Christians who did those things. This is another reason why I think youth ministry is so important. Youth leaders need to talk about living out faith. If the youth, this next generation, will rise up and accept the challenge to as Christian young people be different, they could make a huge difference for the name of Christianity, and for the world as a whole. If the Christians in the world started to act as Christ calls us to, then imagine how positively the world would be changed. The youth has the potential to do this more than anyone, because their minds are still so young and fresh and positive. Youth leaders need to believe in the power that this generation has and then go on to encourage them in it.