This is Stephen...coming to you live from the WV State Fairgrounds, where the Chamber of Commerce is hosting Career Day for area high school students. I am here representing Ministry, talking with students about what the calling entails and offering to be of assistance to them if they feel that call in their life.
Last year, I asked them to interact on our website by imagining what God might look like. This year, because I've been reading unChristian, I will be asking them, "What does it mean to be a Christian?" Check out responses below.
35 comments:
Walk in Love; Follow Christ
to be a christian means to believe in god in your heart and live totally for him
loving God<3
To me, christianity means the trust and love of god.
To me, christianity means the trust and love of god.
faith
to be christ likw
to bleve in the lored
get ur done
to go to church and beleve church
it meaNS BELIEVEIN IN SOMETHING
2 BELIEVE IN JESUS
2 BELIEVE IN JESUS
Being a christian to me means that you will follow the ways that the Lord our God has commanded, and always love and respect.
beleaving in Christ
to know that god loves us and his son gave his life so we could be redeemed.
it means that you can worship freely and spread the gospel to those who who do not know about the lord
Good people; love and follow God
It means to follow God and to trust that He is your Savior and to worship Him and to tell about Him to other people.
I think a christian is somebody who believes in god, somebody who goes to church, and gets there sins frogevin...
To be a Christian means following God's word and loving him more than anything. I believe it means being faithful to God and your walk with him and truly loving and believing in him.
That you believe in god
I believe that to be a christian you need to be honest and caring. I think that a lot of the time people say they are christians but they judge and they don't try to help people in need.
it means you believe in god and love him as your savior
bein a Christian means going loving God. Doing Godly things and doing what the Bible says. Also reading your Bible and praying often. :)
being faithful to god
It means to be one and in contact with god.
it means everything to me because God is there for me through everything and helps me out a lot. So i really appreciate Him (:
i dont know
gays are accepted in my church!
I am a christian and i believe in my religion!
to believe and love and god (:
to have faith and believe in God.
I think what it means to be a christian is loving god, following his word and trusting him when your in doubt about things.
i promised a few reflections on this process, so here goes.
1) it was truly a joy to have conversations with the sophomores from Greenbrier West & Greenbrier East! they were a very kind, conversational bunch, which isn't always the case.
2) call me old fashioned, but the lack of concern many students displayed for grammar and spelling stunned me. certainly, our "text culture" is partly to blame. and the number of errors may not be completely indicative of concern/ability as much as context. they were roaming in large groups, and the pressure of typing in front of a stranger in front of your friends and other groups of friends may have rushed them.
3) getting around to the content..."belief in God" was the most common response. that strikes me, because it isn't uniquely Christian. does this speak to the diverse religious environment in which our teens are living everyday?
4) the most thoughtful response came from a young lady who attends West. she said that while Christianity ought to be about caring for others, it has morphed into judgment against others. a very sophisticated response for a sophomore! that response morphed into a conversation around the table. her friend said, "yeah, i'm gay, and they don't let me in the church." another friend said, "you can come to my church! we don't care." so on and so forth. to me, it speaks to the heart of the tension in today's Christian church--Jesus calls us to serve others, but instead we tend to judge others. the millennial generation seems most keen to this tension, and we'll have to address it for years to come.
5) more startling to me than the grammatical and spelling errors were the blank looks i received from dozens and dozens of students when i posed the question and asked them to type a response. my sense was that they were so unfamiliar with Christianity and the Christian church that they had no idea what to say.
6) three or four young people reported feeling a call, and i was privileged to talk through their call with them. some have criticized me for representing ministry at a Career Fair ("pedaling religion" or "recruiting"), but i go for different reasons. i go to talk to those who feel the call to ministry and be a caring presence in my community to all others.
thanks to the Chamber for the opportunity! see you next year...
peace, stephen
I am thrilled that you take part in school events such as the career fair; and although, my first reaction was the omission of the name of Jesus or Christ in the students' responses, I realize that it is pretty reassuring that you were able to encourage over 30 students to type what it means to be a Christian in a blog in front of friends. And I am pleased that you were able to encourage discussions among the students. Thanks for being there!
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