Have Christians as a whole left behind the teachings of Christ?

Yes

1 of 25

by Amelia Love

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She walked into the room slowly, clutching her resumes to her chest. Several of the committee members smiled to themselves, recognizing her timidity. Others took an immediate liking to her, thinking about their own daughters or granddaughters.

The pastor stood up, "Kristy, I am Pastor Williams. Please, come in and have a seat." He pointed to a chair at the top of the table. Kristy sat down and smiled at everyone. Pastor Williams introduced the other eight members of the personnel search committee.

Kristy passed out a copy of her resume to every person. Of course, they already had a copy of the resume she had sent to the church, but they each smiled at her and took the new copy, placing it on top of the old.

"I'll be honest with you, Kristy," the pastor began. "We usually don't interview people who have so little experience in the ministry. But we noticed from your resume that you have a great deal of experience working with teenagers."

"Yes sir," Kristy said shyly. "I worked as an aide in a junior high school for three years while I was going to college. It allowed me to take night, summer, and online courses, ya know. I got to work with all kinds of kids. Some of them were really troubled. Junior High is a tough age."

"We know," one of the ladies said. Thinking about the trouble she had recently had with her own junior high daughter, the other committee members chuckled. Kristy smiled, although she did not understand the joke.

"Anyway," she continued. "I really felt a calling to work with young people after that. I mean, I'm not much older than they are. And I remember going through the same stuff. A lot of the kids would come to me to talk about their problems when I was an aide. I felt like I really helped them. I want to keep doing that."

"You understand that the youth ministry position also works with high school kids. Do you think you will be able to relate with them as well?" This question was asked by the worship leader.

"Yes," Kristy responded. "I still hang out with most of the kids I worked with in the junior high school. When they went to high school, they invited me to their games and events, and I loved going. I even got to know a lot of their friends. A lot of them have asked me about being a Christian. I loved being able to talk to all of them about that. I like hanging out with High School students just as much as Junior High students." Kristy sat up higher in her chair. She liked these people, and she was feeling more confident about the interview.

"And I see that your major in college was Bible Studies," another man began. "What do you think you learned from your classes?"

"Well, I think I learned that I don't really know anything," Kristy replied. The committee members chuckled. "I mean, I've always wanted to work for God. I guess I've known that since I was a little girl. I really thought I would learn everything there is to know about God when I went to college, but now I'm even more confused than before. But I know my faith has gotten even stronger now. Back when I was a kid, I thought I just had to learn everything about God or I was never going to be a very good Christian. Now I realize that I'm not ever going to really know all that much, but I'm still going to be loved by God and still going to be able to do God's will to the best of my ability, so I'm cool with that."

The committee members smiled. Nearly every one had warmed up to this girl.

"We're looking for someone who can bring our young people into a closer relationship with God," one of the deacons said. "We are a church that believes that the children are our future. That's another reason your resume caught our attention, Kristy. You mention the clubs that you started within the junior high school and the meetings you attended. It seemed to us that you enjoy developing relationships with kids and teaching them about Christ."

"Yes, I think that is my passion," Kristy said.

"Then this might be the church for you. We don't care about numbers, Kristy. We're not trying to have the biggest youth ministry in the city like some other churches. Numbers are not what God is all about."

"I could not agree more," Kristy said, liking this church more and more.

"The church is about drawing people closer to God," the man continued. "That's what we want you to do with our kids."

"Kristy, I think we should tell you the truth," the pastor began. "Our last youth minister was a little bit of a disappointment. All he did care about was numbers."

"Oh," Kristy said, a little surprised.

"He went out into the schools and tried to bring in as many kids to our church as he possible could. This actually started to cause some problems with our own kids. Some of the kids he invited were a little. well, they needed help we just couldn't give them, you see?"

Another member continued. "The really scary part is that they started influencing our kids in a really bad way. Some of them smoked, others even did drugs. They convinced a couple of our kids to try that stuff. They were leading us all down a really dark path."

"That's really terrible," Kristy said. "What happened?"

"A lot of our regular members started leaving the church," the pastor answered. "Pretty soon, our church was swarmed with people that had all kinds of problems and bad habits. Some of those kids even began to bring their parents to the church."

"Oh," Kristy said, a little more quietly.

"Of course, they were always asking for handouts and support and money, and we just didn't have anything. We tried to be nice about it for a while, but there are just some people who can't be helped," another member said. "And it was really dragging our entire church down. Other people started avoiding our church completely. A few times, we even had to come in the evenings to wash off the graffiti that some of the kids started writing on the church building. It was beyond terrible."

"I see," Kristy said.

"Kristy, it has taken us a long time to get over that and rebuild our church again. We had to let the former youth minister go, of course. A lot of those kids left when he did. We had to ask some of the other to leave. This was important to protect our own kids, you understand. The Bible teaches us not to let ourselves be influenced by the wrong type of people. This goes doubly for our kids, of course. We need our kids to be around kids who will help them get closer to God, not the other way around. There are already too many bad influences out there for our kids as it is. It's simply not smart to add to that," that pastor said.

"There are a lot of influences," Kristy said.

"I just thought it was important to let you know a little bit about our past. If you are our new minister, some of the people might be a little bit nervous about what you plan to do. We really want someone who will just develop relationships and focus on the children we have," one of the ladies said. "Do you think you can do that?"

Kristy said quiet and still for a moment, thinking hard about her response. Her heart had dropped down, but she did not know why. Correction. She did know why; she just didn't want to admit to it. A large part of her wanted to thank the committee members for their time and leave quietly out the door. But a deeper part of her, a part that she had learned not to ignore over the last several years, nudged her to do something differently.

"What you went through was really scary," Kristy finally said with a low and timid voice. "History teaches that it is almost impossible for us to deal with something like that. It sounds like to me that your youth minister managed to invite a lot of horrible people into the building. Everything must have been in complete chaos. It must have been horrible watching those people influence others in such a bad way. When something like that happens in a church or in a community, everything breaks completely down. No one can possibly take control of such a scary situation. I understand why you asked them all to leave."

She looked down, wondering if she should finish, knowing that she had to. "It's a good thing you managed to kick Jesus out of the building. It sounds to me like you all had a close call."

Kristy stood up and sadly left the room. The pastor and committee members were quiet for a moment. Someone finally broke the tension, "I can't help but to feel a little bit sorry for that poor girl," the man said. "She has no idea what life is really like. I'm afraid she's going to have to learn the hard way." He glanced up at the pastor. "Who's our next candidate?"

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