Jesus Isn't Always Interesting

BOISE, Idaho, Feb. 26

     Thank God for spiritual highs, but there’s a danger in them if we’re not careful.  Youth ministry people, as for many other Christians, have long known and lamented the symptoms of what we might call “PRS”, or Post-Retreat Syndrome.

     PRS feels like a malady when you’re in the middle of it.  Some of my best experiences in college were the semiannual retreats my fellowship would take into the mountains of Virginia to worship, rest, and grow closer to Jesus together; PRS came on those Sunday afternoons when I’d find myself back at the quad, re-entering campus like nothing had changed.  Others have experienced “reverse culture-shock”, another form of PRS, when they’ve visited impoverished majority-world countries on mission trips, only to return to see American extravagance with fresh eyes.  Coming back from Chrysalis, Emmaus, or Winter Camp can have the same effect and make us wonder whether the experience happened at all, or whether it was genuine.

     The good news is that it’s all a normal, healthy part of the Christian life.  As Oswald Chambers was fond of pointing out, Jesus’ first move after his Transfiguration—where his disciples see him more clearly than normal—is to descend into the demon-possessed valley (see Matt. 17, Mark 9, Luke 9).  College students face this when they return to the drudgery of homework after worshipping hard-core for a weekend, and high-school campers face this when they leave church camp refreshed and energized, maybe having given themselves to Christ for the first time or committed to seek social justice in ways they hadn’t thought about before—and then face the difficulties of peer pressure, judgment, and marginalization in a high-school environment that hasn’t changed while they’ve been retreating.

     This isn’t to say that spiritual highs aren’t important.  My own faith development has been seriously strengthened by times of intimate closeness with God in retreat settings: ROCK! 2004 (the Baltimore-Washington version of CONVO) was one; my Chrysalis weekend was another, as was most of seminary.  And now I work in Christian camping, which is a form of parachurch revivalism—so I do hope that the Lord provides refreshing, fulfilling mountaintop experiences to the campers and guests who visit our programs at Lazy F.

     Even so, PRS begs a conversation for those in ministry, namely around this question: given that God does often speak through moments of spiritual high, how do we equip our students or parishioners to practice the Christian life even in seasons when it’s tiresome (it often is), difficult (Jesus says it will be), or uninteresting (let’s be honest)?  “There is no conceivable way,” C. S. Lewis wrote in the Screwtape Letters, “of getting by reason from the proposition ‘I am losing interest in this’ to the proposition ‘This is false’”—but it’s not always obvious to think so.  How do we equip disciples, especially youth, to be ready to meet the everyday, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other discipline of following Jesus when the dry times come?

     Recruiting potential camp counselors at Boise State University last night, I met some young adult Christians who seem well-poised for taking Jesus into the nitty-gritty of daily life, but they acknowledged the difficulty of persevering.  “The ‘point of death’ is easy,” one student said during the Bible study, probably referring to Philippians 2:8 and the grandiose commitments we make to Jesus when we see him most clearly.  “It’s the life thing that’s hard”—that is, giving even the uninteresting aspects of life to Jesus when it’s day-by-day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute, or following him through the mundane.

     In the practice of ministry, especially youth ministry, there’s a place for the moments of deep, felt closeness to God—the sunrise hikes to the cross, the altar calls, the commitments to justice.  But we need to be preparing our kids, and ourselves, for when Christian life isn’t as interesting as we might wish it to be.  Discipleship does its best work in the mundane.  Let’s talk about how to take it seriously even after we leave the mountaintop.

     --John Harrell, Program Coordinator

Reflection Questions

•  Have you had a “mountaintop” experience in your own faith development (not everyone has)?  If so, what was it?

•  Take a moment to thank God that God sometimes gifts us with mountaintop experiences!

•  What is your routine of daily spiritual discipline?  Can you commit to reading a little Scripture (5 minutes a day, perhaps) and talking to the Lord a little (again, maybe starting at 5 minutes a day)?

•  Take a moment to thank God for being good, loving, and gracious even when we don’t “feel” God’s presence over long periods of time.  Ask God to help you follow him even when it’s not easy, adventurous, or exciting.