A new fashioned Tent Revival

They call it "the 99." 99 stands for the number of teenagers who die every day here in the states, many from poor decisions with drugs, alcohol, or self esteem issues, that play out in car accidents, overdoses, or taking their life into their own hands. It is a large dome (actually a tent supported by a continuous flow of air), which is termed a "walk-through theatre." After you enter the tent you enter many different rooms, each depicting one of these "scenes of reality" where a teenager has died. At the end, there is a very short gospel presentation of Jesus dying for the sins of the world (but interestingly they didn't show the resurrection.) They showed a short video of a man who had to make a decision at the train tracks, whether to save his son, or pull the lever, lower the bridge, and crush his son who had fallen in, so that the approaching train full of people could live. They read John 3.16, asked people to bow their heads, close their eyes, and say a prayer if they wanted to "be sure of their eternal destiny right then and there." Each person was then asked to go out and sit at a small table with a counselor to talk about their experience. At the table I went to, I was asked the question, "If you died tonight, would you be confident of your eternal destination?"

There is nothing inherently wrong with something like this, but just not my cup of tea I guess, for a couple reasons. Don't get me wrong, hell is scary, and no one should want to go, but there is a better reason to follow Jesus. Conversely, heaven is a wonderful, perfect place, but still there is a better motivation for following Jesus. That's just it. It's him. It's Jesus.

In college, my youth ministry professor had a phrase, "What you win them with is what you win them to." If we attract people with pizza, or games, or lock-ins, then we better be really careful to communicate to them the bigger, better reason for which we are really meeting. We must be very careful to never lower our purpose for meeting as God's holy people, his "called out ones" to declare his praises. We must continually go back to the truth that God IS the Gospel. Jesus Christ is the good news. We follow Jesus for Jesus. He is the reward. If all of heaven's perfection, peace, eternal life, etc. existed, but Jesus wasn't there, it would be worth it.

Recently in youth group we've been talking about the subject of following Jesus. One lesson was titled, "What following Jesus Is/Isn't." Let's make sure that we are first of all living, then teaching what it really is to follow Jesus. It's not a "get outta hell free" card. It's not just a decision we make so we may go to heaven. It's not being good for goodness sake. It loosing everything we have for the sake of him who gave it all. It's realizing just how far God went to love us and realizing that we just can't live for anything else. How could we?!

So back to "the 99." At the end, they told me that there would be people praying for specific requests the whole three weeks of this promotion. I took them up on their offer, and wrote simply: "That students would fall in love with Jesus, more than they are scared out of hell."

Hell is scary, probably far worse than we can imagine. Heaven is wonderful, probably far better than we can imagine. However, Jesus is best. He is our most worthy pursuit. To quote one of my favorite songs from the Passion conference of years past:

"Give us one pure and holy passion, give us one magnificent obsession, give me one glorious ambition: to know and follow hard after You."