… and there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.  — Judges 2:10b

     A lady I used to work with, we’ll call her “Debby,” lost her father the Thursday before Easter a few years ago. I talked with another coworker, “Kayla,” about it the next day. Kayla was a 25 year old, unchurched woman. She said, “Can you imagine? Easter is probably going to be ruined forever for Debby because of this.”

     I reminded her that Debby was a Christian, so in the years to come, the proximity of her father’s death to Easter, when we worship and celebrate a risen savior, would probably be a comfort to her.

     Kayla, who thinks of Easter as the bunny and chocolate holiday, didn’t understand.  So we talked about it. I discovered along the way that she had no idea Christians claim that Jesus rose bodily from the dead (she assumed he went to heaven “the regular way,”), that the Sanhedrin couldn’t find the body so they claimed the disciples stole it (“so it’s like a mystery!” she said), and she was confused as to how Bible characters related to each other. She asked where Moses was while all this “Passion stuff” was going on, and about where Adam, Eve, and Noah came in.

     To those of us raised in a church environment, this kind of Biblical illiteracy seems stunning, but Kayla is in many ways representative of millions of people from emerging generations.They’ve grown up in a world that has lost its sense of Story — the Grand Story, the Story of God and man. Their parents and grandparents rejected the idea that life has meaning (throwing out “plot”) and that the meaning is determined by our Creator(throwing out the Storyteller).

     Now, if they have any positive thoughts on the Bible at all, it is of an anthology of disjointed episodes without a larger context, a collection of “points to ponder”, or a self-help manual (“Three easy steps to a whole-new-you”) broken down into verse form for quick reference. But the Grand Story framework is gone, and with it, the ability to show them how their individual story intersects with God’s Story, filling their previously plotless narratives with meaning. And little wonder that they don’t want a Savior when they don’t understand why they would need to be saved, or what they’re being saved from.

     As Christians, let’s tell our Story every chance we get. Let’s earn the right to tell it by the honesty of our lives, and when they ask, let’s give it to them. Our lives are each a subplot in the universal story, and the journey of each Christian mirrors the Biblical story from Fall to redemption to mission, and, at last, to victory.

     This is why we write and sing the songs we do on albums like “Before The Throne” and “These Things I Remember.”  This is why we cling to the great hymns of the past and sing the fantastic modern worship songs from elsewhere in the world, written by the likes of the Gettys and Stuart Townend, Sandra McCracken, Michael Pritzl and Matt Redman.  Songs that “tell the story,” infused with the gospel, steeped in sound Christian theology. 

     Do many from emerging generations lack a sense of self-worth? Do they question “what’s the point of it all?” Do they feel as if life has no purpose or meaning, that they have no special mission? Yes. Do they, and all humans, crave purpose, meaning, and a sense of mission? Yes again. And they can find it all in the old, old story….

“I love to tell the story, for some have never heard
The message of salvation from God’s own Holy Word.”

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