Every head bowed, every eye closed. Good. Now, do you feel a stirring deep in your soul when I talk about missions? If so, stand up.
If you’ve spent any time in evangelicalism, you know all too well this familiar scene, when the trajectory of one’s life boils down to a single, mystical moment as the band ascends the stage and a synth pad drones in the background.
January isn’t just the season of resolutions, frigid temps, and caloric deficits. It’s also conference season in the evangelical world. And for many college-age believers, it’s a chance to double-down on their spirituality, arms high and heart abandoned in a sea of like-minded students.
I’m not against conferences—many of them I love. I work conferences regularly, I am friends with those involved, and I even attended a Christian university where our thrice-weekly chapel was itself a literal arena event. But the problem with spiritual mountaintop experiences, like any other high, is that there’s always a low. Just as the demon-riddled lowland greeted the disciples after the transfiguration, the monotonous valley of everyday life never lags too far behind the final chorus. This is normal. And it wouldn’t be a problem at all, in fact, if it weren’t so radically divergent from the enchanting bill of goods the Christian conference cottage industry often sells young adults.
Many conferences rally young people to do extraordinary, counter-cultural, radical things for kingdom. High school, college, and seminary students are exhorted to do anything but settle for a predictable, cozy existence. The drumbeat, intentional or not, is risk, run, burn out, and die for Jesus.
This, admittedly, is what many young people—and the rest of us—probably need in order to pierce through the haze of apathy that envelops our cushy American lifestyles. But I doubt if such rhetoric always represents the counsel most fitting for current college students. Read More
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