The Power, Passion, and Potential of a Young Person

I made my first overseas trip – to Central America – when I was 18. I was 21 when I first went to Asia. At 24 my wife, our daughter and I, moved to Taiwan for our first two-year term of missionary service. At 28, I started AsiaNet Ministries. By the time I was 35 my family and I had traveled in over 20 nations, helped plant 25 churches in Sri Lanka, and were leading a team that included seven missionary families.

Today, at 52, I sometimes reminisce about those years and can’t believe I had so much energy and got so much done! I also remember the passion and almost endless self-sacrificing vision of my youth.

Every generation produces new young people. From these youth new sources of energy, passion and vision are bestowed on the world. And, the older generation that spawned them, who are now slowing down, must come to terms with their zeal, their hope, their innocence, and their potential.

If you are over 40, you probably have begun to forget some of the power of being young. You have lost much of your youthful passion. Your energy levels are lower. Your vision is more “refined” which definitely includes maturity and wisdom, but it might also mean it is more cynical or cautious. It is certainly more realistic. Your passion is more compromised, meaning you now balance sold-out service for self-serving interests and life obligations. You now think about retirement, not just winning the world for Jesus. You look back with regret as often as you look forward with hope.

Youth aren’t encumbered with such conflicts of interest. Their life is ahead of them, and they are ready to live. In the words of Saturday Night Live character Matt Foley, young people want to “grab life by the tail, pull it down, tie it in a knot and put it into your pocket.” They are willing to make big sacrifices for what they believe. They don’t have much experience, and they lack knowledge, but they want to change the world.

Young people also don’t know what many older folks now believe, that – again in the acrid words of Matt Foley – they probably “won’t amount to Jack Squat.”

Cynical, yes. But too often the sentiments of the older toward the younger.

David accomplished his most famous deed when he was a teenager. By himself, despite his elder brothers’ scorn and the army’s mass cowardice, he confronted Goliath and killed him with a stone and a sling. King Saul had offered a huge reward – money and his daughter – to the man who killed the giant. David, however, didn’t fight Goliath for money. He did it for an ideal. He loved God and His people and would not stand idly by while both were mocked by a tyrant. David’s faith, borne on the wings of youthful zeal, killed a giant and inspired a nation.

Everyone who knows me knows how much I love surfing. People joke about Doug Gehman’s passion for surfing. In the 1960s, when I was a teenager, surfing became one of the icons of a generation who were turning their backs on “The Establishment” and the greed and war it had come to symbolize. A whole generation – hippies, flower children, surfers, run-aways and rebels “turned on, tuned in, and dropped out.” Our parents did not know what to do with us. We marched against Vietnam. We stood up against big money. We quit college and got stoned. We rioted and protested on college campuses across the nation. It was a messy time in America. Yet, out of that cultural conundrum God brought forth the Jesus People. I became one of them in 1973, at “Jesus ‘73”, the first big Christian youth rally for our times. 15,000 young people gathered on a Pennsylvania farm for three days of music and Christian ministry. I gave my life to Christ at that rally.

There were no churches for us in those days. Not a single youth-focused church existed in my home area. In the early 70’s one Presbyterian pastor started a Saturday night meeting for young people. It drew hundreds of high school and college kids. When I went to college in Indiana, there were only two churches in the county that centered around marginal youth. I joined one of them, Zion Chapel. I grew up in the Lord in that church. I met my wife there, got married there, and got sent to the mission field from that church.

On the other side of the nation, in Costa Mesa, California, Pastor Chuck Smith started welcoming hippies into his church – the first Calvary Chapel. In Pensacola, Florida Pastor Ken Sumrall began reaching out to young people, loving them into the Kingdom. Liberty Bible College and Globe Missionary Evangelism were born from that love, and from Brother Ken’s belief that youth would change the world for Jesus Christ.

Many of these churches and ministries still thrive today. Many are now huge and are still growing. Others have become stale, middle-aged, and almost irrelevant to this generation. But, their legacy is profound. God moved on young people, and a few leaders said yes to God and loved them, trained them, and turned them loose on the world. Many of Globe’s senior missionaries are the fruit of that time.

Fast forward to the summer of 2005. In July that year, I attended the Christian Surfers National Conference in Honolulu. At that conference a young man named Mike Doyle spoke about a new ministry called Walking On Water. Walking On Water was making Christian surf films. As Outreach Director, Mike had helped bring the message of Jesus Christ, through the sport of surfing, to thousands of young people all over the world. In a few years Walking On Water had touched over 85,000 young people in 15 nations! It was an amazing story of youthful faith, vision and passion for Jesus Christ. I was mesmerized by Mike’s testimony, delivered (you gotta know Mike) in his modest, matter-of-fact conversational style.

After the session I introduced myself to Mike saying, “You and I have got to talk. I would like to partner with Walking On Water to do an outreach with Globe.” That conversation led to the Scotland outreach with Bob and Melissa Hill, and the starting of “Deeper,” a skate outreach church for young people in Dumbarton. Over 120 kids attend every week. Deeper is now one of the biggest youth ministries in Scotland.

This past summer, we did a second outreach with Walking On Water in Bielefeld, Germany. One of the couples on Brad Thurston’s team, Johannes and Esther Baumann, are now planting a new skate church in Bielefeld. My hope and expectation is that within a year or two we will be hearing similar reports.

Another young man, Ian Skelley, is helping Globe make cutting edge television programs that feature our missionaries’ ministries. Ian has already done three – in Cost Rica, Scotland, and Nicaragua – and three more are planned for this fall. Ian is willing to travel anywhere in the world. We just give him a plane ticket and he’ll go and make a missionary film and tell a missionary story. Ian’s work is featured on the “All Over the World” television program.

A steady stream of young people are coming to Globe to talk about missions. They are signing up for intern assignments, outreaches, Boot Camp, and our Institute for Global Ministry. I am continually amazed at their willingness to give their lives, and make huge sacrifices, for what they believe is a noble cause – to reach the world for Jesus Christ. And we are retooling everything we do to connect with and serve them.

I want to challenge you. If you are over the age of 40, take some time to reconnect with the journey you began with Jesus as a young person. And find a way to get involved with young people. Look around! Thousands of young people today need the love, the encouragement, the guidance, and the wisdom you can provide. It doesn’t matter if they are from Indiana or India, from Pensacola or Peru, they are ready to be radical and will follow Jesus to the ends of the earth if we can inspire them with who He really is.

You MUST be willing to make some changes in your life to get their attention and earn their respect. They can spot a phony a mile away. You must become youthful at heart and allow God to give you a genuine love for young people. In my case, it was (and still is) important that I know how to ride a surf board. Surfing buys me respect. I surf because I love it, but I need to be a surfer to keep me connected to youth culture.

Young people today are a distinct people group – with their own language, dress code, worldview, and culture. To reach them we must get on the inside. Just like any cross-cultural work, reaching young people requires a missionary mind. But, there are incredible dividends for reaching this generation. In them and through them is the power complete the greatest mission in history!

The Two Structures of God's Redemptive Mission - by Ralph D. Winter

Ralph Winter, a Presbyterian missionary to Central America, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary and the founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission in Pasadena, California has written what many consider the basal work on the subject of church and mission structures.

There is a lot of talk today, especially among independent and mega churches, about the place of "para-church" organizations in the Kingdom of God. Ralph Winter, in my opinion, does an excellent job in attempting to resolve this debate by declaring that the local church and para-church dichotomy is not a dichotomy at all but is simply a two-fold expression of "THE CHURCH."

Pastor Rick Warren and other well-known Christian leaders have recently visited the subject, and I have had personal involvement with the dialogue for nearly 30 years among independent charismatic church leaders. Winter wrote his article in 1973, in the earlier days of some of the renewal movements that were re-inventing the way church and mission were being done. It could be argued that renewal was needed in some denominations and structures. Winter was concerned that the pendulum was swinging too far in the opposite direction.

Winter gives names to the two expressions of the church: Modalities and Sodalities. Modalities are structures primarily focused on nurture and fellowship, the local church. Sodalities are structures primarily focused on task, mission societies and other "para-church" organizations. Para-church is a mis-nomer because it implies a structure that is not church, but exists along side the church.

Winter uses scripture and Jewish history as his exegetical basis. The early local churches (modalities) were built upon the Jewish synagogue model in the Jewish diaspora. Paul's apostolic band, was sent from Antioch yet functioned as a separate structure. It was the forerunner of modern sodalities, and was the church doing a task, from Winter's perspective.

You can read Winter's entire article at the US Center for World Mission Website: http://www.uscwm.org/mobilization_division/resources/web_articles_11-20-01/Two%20Structures%20for%20Mob%20/two_structures.html

Winter insists both modalities and sodalities are legitimate expressions of the church of Jesus Christ and are necessary to complete God's redemptive purpose on the earth. I heartily agree!

There are detractors. Some leaders declare: "If the church was doing its job, we would not need para-church organizations." Others assert the opposite: "If the church were doing its job we would have MORE of these kind of structures, because more people would be released to do what God has called them to do."

It is my belief that both structures are here to stay, both because of God's design and because of the nature of man. Below is a visual aid I created to help us think more accurately about the relationships between the Agency, the Local Church, the Missionary.

Flags and our Heroes

This photograph is known as “the most reprinted photo in history.” Joseph Rosenthal, an Associated Press photographer, took the picture on February 23, 1945 on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima. The battle for control of this tiny island was one of the most horrific invasions in modern history. After only five days of all out warfare against 22,000 entrenched Japanese soldiers, U.S. Marine “Easy Company,” and the Divisions of which they were a part, suffered nearly five thousand casualties. Rosenthal took this photograph at the summit of Mt. Suribachi, the highest point on the island, while six young Marines raised the U.S. flag. The picture was wired back to New York and became an instant sensation in newspapers across the country. It captured the nation’s attention, awakened America’s sense of pride in our fighting forces, galvanized our resolve to win the war, and provided comfort and meaning to those families who had lost their sons.

In this way, the photo served a great and worthy purpose.

Unfortunately, the photo does not tell the whole truth or the complete story. It was the symbol America needed at the time, but for the men who fought and died on Iwo Jima, especially the six men pictured in the photo, the flag raising and the attention it ruthlessly focused on them, was something else. America needed heroes, so we made heroes of Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, John Bradley, Mike Strank, Rene Gagnon, and Harlon Block. These six young men became the unwitting and sometimes unwilling symbols of our national pride; they found the task to be a brutal calling.

Symbols, while important, are almost always larger than life. Reality is messier, more complicated, and usually a little disappointing. For these boys, the heroism bestowed on them was an uncomfortable fit. They were boys – not one of them was over the age of 25. Not one of them knew how to deal with the trauma of war nor the triumph of celebrity. In the preceding five days before the flag raising, they had fought for their lives, suffered battle wounds, and watched many of their friends die violent deaths. On that auspicious February morning they were numb with the stuff of real war. Their thoughts were not occupied with triumph, but with death, blood, hunger, grief, and utter fatigue.

What happened to these six boys after that day was not a pretty picture. Mike Strank and Harlan Block died the next day in the continuing battle for the island. Franklin Sousley died four weeks later from Japanese sniper fire, still defending Iwo Jima. Only three of the six flag raisers survived. Soon after the photo became famous, they were shipped to the United States and spent the rest of their military careers traveling the country, making public appearances in front of thousands of adoring fans.

The mass attention they received was not the blessing nor the glory we presume. They struggled constantly between public adulation and private anguish, the result of battle trauma and grief. Ira Hayes died on January 24, 1955, ten years later, an aimless and impoverished alcoholic. He was found frozen on the ground, outside a friend’s home, dead from exposure to the elements. Rene Gagnon died on October 12, 1979, of a heart attack, at his janitor job. He was the only man of the three who had seemed to enjoy the limelight; but in fact he was pushed in front of the microphones and cameras by his attention-seeking wife. The fame brought him only one consistent reward: marital strife. Three days before his death, his 32-year-old son admonished him to “resolve” things with his wife Pauline, to which he replied, “I have no answers. There is no way out. There is no escape.”

John Bradley, in the middle of the photo, was the only one of the six men who lived out his remaining life with some normalcy. He moved back to his home town, married, and built a funeral home business. Through the years he loved his wife, raised his children, and lived in the same small community. After the war he rarely spoke about his celebrity. He refused to talk to reporters. Why? One wonders. He only gave one clue for his distain for the public eye: the pain of losing his friends, and celebrity from the photo were difficult burdens. He did not want to be depicted as a hero. He had only done his job, like every other soldier. After his death, his son James recounts the story of the flag raisers and of his father, in the book, Flags of our Fathers.

Are we disparaging these men by pointing out their weaknesses, their failures, their humanity? Absolutely not. On the contrary, we are honoring them more by dispelling the impossible myths of human heroism. These men were heroes; there is no doubt about that. But they weren’t the only heroes. They were six among 70,000 who fought at Iwo Jima. John Bradley, Ira Hayes and Rene Gagnon knew this to be true. The fact that our political and media leaders, and the general public, needed a symbol, and therefore made examples of these three boys, should not diminish the greater truth: Everyone who does his job, in the final tally, is equal. No one stands taller than the other. The three surviving flag raisers wished such honor could have been afforded to all their friends, especially to those who died in battle.

For both good and bad, our Christian culture is much like this story. We all want our heroes, and we look to our leaders to be that for us. We want them to be larger than life. But there are no “larger than life” heroes in the Kingdom of God. There are only servants, and all of us are flawed. Those who strive for the glory, or live in the light of public admiration, upon closer examination, are just like us.

True heroes in fact never exist in the lime light. Their heroism is measured, not by public praise, but in the trenches with their friends, doing a dirty job that must be done – without fanfare, without acknowledgement, without hope of reward. All a real hero needs is to be connected with his buddies, and to know he is serving a noble cause.

I’m tired of banner-waving Christianity where heroes become larger than life, where we worship personality over purpose, glitz over guts, and fame over friendship. No one can live up to the icons we create for ourselves; they are nothing more than false gods and man-made idols. Every one of them is fallible. Better to keep it real, serve faithfully, and stay focused on Jesus. At the end of the day, He is the only Flag we should be waving anyway.

We need more real Christianity, where our heroes live in every home, serve in every community, and stand for what is right in every quiet corner. They don’t need to be praised by the crowd. They don’t need a crowd at all. They don’t need a band playing behind them, or a chorus singing their introduction. Give them a great cause, one that will honor Jesus Christ and fulfill His purpose, give them a few friends for companionship and encouragement, and help them do their work, and they are satisfied and will get the job done.

Our missionaries are such people. We need many more of them. They’re not in it for the money or the glory. They didn’t go to get rich or to gain public praise. They serve only to make a difference in the world, even if that is in a far away place among unknown people. If more Christians and Christian leaders would live like missionaries the world would soon become a better place to live, and all of us would discover that Jesus, our only true Hero, rises adequately in our midst to lead the way for all of us. He, through our service, would draw the world to Himself.

Doug Gehman