One of my favorite things to think about is identity. I think it's what the Bible is all about. Creating an identity for a people who want to live according to the truth. For the Israelite it was an identity as a people of the book, who obviously found their identity in the law because it was given to them by God. For us as the church it is an identity in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
One of my professors likened the Old Testament to a scrapbook. A stitching together of various memories and pictures, poem and songs, quotes and stories that are meant to show a larger story. What is the point of a scrapbook? To show identity to those who follow after. To show, this is who we are and this is why we are the way we are.
We've been talking about it our youth group Revolution ONE80...we've just recently added the "Revolution" because it describes what I feel needs to happen to see true ONE80 life change in our students and in our city. It's caused me to reflect on what goes into forming an identity and to respect how amazing of a job the Bible did at forming the identity of a people, especially seeing as it was written and compiled over 2000 some years and received by people in different cultures, socioeconomic standing, educations, and more. This is how I feel about our group sometimes, like it is very disjointed with student of every age, maturity, economic status, different schools and cities, and places on their faith journey. That's why I feel we need something of a Revolution. Something of the power of the Word and Spirit of God that will work beyond us.
So who are we? We are a passionate community of young people seeking to bring revolutionary life change to the youth and city of Santa Cruz by following the example of Jesus. Do I feel like that's who we are right now? Probably not, but that is who we are becoming.
Random April
7 years ago
