I just started a book called "Radical," which has the subtitle "Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream." I have not gotten too far into it yet, but it is pretty easy to see where this book is going. And the place its going is, well, uncomfortable.
The first part of the book gives specific examples of people in far off lands who literally risk their lives to both share and receive the good news of Jesus Christ. It talks about people whose "churches" meet in secret places -- people who will spend hours on end for weeks at a time learning as much as they can about the same Bible that too often collects dust on our night stands.
It also talks about another group of people -- a people who worship God in fancy buildings, with state of the art music and comfortable chairs. It describes people who have become adept at ignoring the parts the teachings of Jesus that interfere with their comfortable lives.
I have struggled with these issues for a long time, and I have to say that reading this book is not helping. But, I digress. I really didn't intend to write about me today.
What I really want to talk about is my daughter's school -- Grapevine Faith Christian School. I am sure that Faith looks at first glance like a lot of other Christian schools. The students wear uniforms and look like fairly typical kids. In fact, at first glance Faith probably looks a lot like many public schools. Faith has its share of successes, and its share of problems. It has students who are zealous about their relationship with God. It has students who are not. It has parents who are zealous about their relationship with God. It has parents who are not.
But Faith has taken on what seems to me an impossible mission -- which is to "develop and graduate authentic Christian leaders." Why do I say "impossible"? I just don't see many people who really have the time, desire and inclination to look hard at what it means to have an authentic relationship with Jesus, much less many people who strive to be authentic Christian leaders. How does the discipline of a life devoted to God compete with the quick fixes readily available in everyday life in America? How do you get high school students to get past the complexities of life as a teenager and to see the bigger picture? How do you challenge these young people to put things like proms, football games, cheer leading, grades, and college applications into perspective? For that matter, how do you get them away from video games, Facebook and texting long enough for God to capture their imagination?
What amazes me about the leadership and faculty at Faith is that they really think they can accomplish this seemingly impossible mission. They really think that they can take ordinary teenagers and turn them into leaders who understand that Jesus has called us to a radical faith. They think that they will graduate young men and women who will never settle for quaint Sunday services and ice cream socials, but instead will embrace an authentic relationship with Christ -- including the sacrifices that necessarily come with that relationship. Young people who will count the cost of following Jesus and who will forge ahead, undeterred, as leaders in the church of the future, in their communities, in government and in the business world.
As I mentioned before, Faith is far from a perfect place. It is, after all, full of people. But it also has a faculty and staff who are full of faith. And faith, as we know, can move mountains.
I am guessing that most Faith graduates don't seem all that different from graduates of countless other schools. But I am also guessing that, for most of them, sometime, somewhere and somehow the blood, sweat, tears and prayers of a dedicated group of Christians at a place called Faith will make an eternal difference in not just the lives of these students, but in the lives of the many people these future Christian leaders will touch. The mission may seem impossible, but maybe it just takes a radical faith.
"I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
Matthew 17:20-21.
