According to the California Teachers’ Association Web site, Generation Z is the generation that “while they may be named for the last letter of the alphabet, they’ll soon be at the forefront of solving the worst environmental, social and economic problems in history.” This generation, born in the mid 90s, are current middle and high school students. They are supposed to be the ones who fix all our problems. This is the generation that will recognize the damage we have done to the planet and to each other and rise up to fix it. This is a perspective by many secular leaders and is a calling that Christian and non-Christian kids are trying to live up to. With social action being all the rage right now, the church has been able to find common purpose with our culture to expand God’s Kingdom.
Is social action and world change really the goal of the youth worker? Is mobilizing an army of young people to enact lasting social change what we are called to do?
Justice is part of the calling of all Christians. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we get the picture that a true and whole faith cannot escape the call for God’s people to live into their faith and be about God’s heart for our broken world. In the Book of Micah, when God’s people had all their great religious practices, the prophet made it very clear the application of their faith was in doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God. We cannot love God on one hand and stand by while the poor are being oppressed. James says a similar thing in his book as he declared faith without works is dead. Our faith shows itself in the way we live. True religion is caring for the needs of others (i.e., widows and orphans).
It is encouraging to see our culture have a heightened awareness and call for justice. To move past compassion ministries and work toward fixing the systems that keep people in systemic poverty is a mighty task. This is also one of the tasks of the church. Christians in power must use their power to stand up for those without it. This desire for justice is also the desire of our culture. Civil rights, workers’ rights, going green, fair trade—these are cultural desires that are good and easily can be partnered with because they reflect the heart of God.
The problem with calling students to social action and justice ministry is that these terms are too vague and tend to be just a feel-good sport dealing with ideas and concepts that have no real touch points for them. In our area, students love wearing Toms shoes, drinking fair trade coffee, drinking Ethos water, boycotting Wal-Mart and shopping at American Apparel. These are the markers of students who “care” and who are “making a difference.” In many cases, these are token gestures that carry zero weight in other areas of their lives. This is because justice and lasting social change is a job for people with power. Students have no real power to stop hunger, make fair trade happen or stand up for homeless rights or against racial discrimination. Only those with real power can transform unjust systems, not students with too much disposable income.
Thankfully God already has been calling people and organizations to work for justice and social change. God has called people of power and influence. God has collected money and resources. God has and will continue to enact lasting influence in the specific places to which those people are called. Because justice is the heart of God and should be our hearts’ desire also, we have the opportunity to partner with organizations that are doing great work. International Justice Mission, World Vision and community food banks are three examples of places where students get to work alongside others who are enacting social change. Because these organizations are established and here for the long haul, any involvement we have with them strengthens their ministry and helps enact social change.
When we took students to Mexico for our annual mission trip, we worked really hard to retrain our students’ thinking. We are not the great white church that is going to help the poor Mexican church and change the lives and community with our week of good works and testimonies. Rather, we were invited to partner with what God is already doing. God was already at work in the community where we served. God already was using people to transform that community. We simply got the pleasure of working alongside our sisters and brothers in Christ, encouraging one another as we worked toward lasting social change.
Social action and justice that students can fight for is the injustice that happens on their campuses every day. They can use their social power to stand up for the little guy, to confront bullies and to speak up and for those who are marginalized on their campuses. This kind of social justice and social action actually costs students something real: their social status. If our focus was to have students work toward social change and justice, their campuses need to be the laboratories for their faith to take action. Their campuses are where they are to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with their God. Their campus is where their faith must be lived out in action.
So is social action and justice is our calling? I would argue the answer is “No.” It is the fruit of our calling but should not be the focus. We are called by God to make disciples. We have been called by God to walk with students through this short season of their lives and to partner with God to help solidify and own their faith, as well as begin to discern their unique calling. Like good missionaries, we will use any and all places where our cultural values and desires match the values and desires of God. Some people call this “a thin place,” a place where the veil between the sacred and secular is especially thin. Right now, social action and justice get to be the place where we can partner with culture and use it as a common story with our cultural context as a compelling way to tell the gospel story.
Christians have done this from the beginning. In the Book of Acts, Stephen used Old Testament history to communicate the gospel to his Jewish audience. Paul used a local poet and unknown alter on Mars Hill to communicate a knowable God. More recently, Josh McDowell used the power of logic and reason to communicate that we don’t have a blind faith but a reasonable faith. Audio Adrenaline made an impact by using the growing place for music to highlight that Jesus came to give us an abundant life and that Christianity is not a boring, saying-no-to-everything-fun religion. In our current context, social action and justice is the thin place. It is the place where cultural values touch our spiritual values. We can use that as a place to communicate the gospel of a God who sees and loves the poor and oppressed and calls His people to do the same.
Just like in the past, the thin place is not the goal. Old Testament history, local poets and artists, logic and reason, Christian music and social action is not the goal. The goal is for students to give their hearts to Jesus Christ, experience personal transformation and live into their unique callings. For students to do this, they need to be a part of a ministry and church that provides a well-balanced diet of teaching, experiences, community and action.
Service projects and mission trips are vital to youth ministry. They are important but only part of the full ministry. These trips and opportunities provide experiences for students to explore their calling as God’s people and solidify their faith as their own. The body of Christ is made up of many different parts, and students need to see a vital Christian life lived out in many arenas. Vital faith is lived out in normal jobs such as the ones many on our volunteer staff have; it is lived out in missions (overseas and local); it is lived out in activism; it is lived out in compassion ministries; it is lived out in Vacation Bible School. A vital faith that is lived out in action happens in whatever context God places us. Exposing students to the many different ways vital faith is lived out is a tool to achieve the goal of helping students have a true and vital faith that is lived out in the unique way God has made and called them.
It is great that students want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, to be about saving the planet and stopping injustice. We need to celebrate these values, because they are the cultural values that align with Christian values. Unless hearts are yielded to Christ and transformed by Him, the result is still dead faith. Social action and world change are real places we can use to present a gospel that is powerful and relevant—a holistic gospel that not only causes lasting transformation personally but also locally and globally.
