I have finally finished my struggle through a very THICK book. Not thick in terms of pages (although it was not thin there either), but THICK in terms of content. WOW! What a ride. I’m sure I’ll be digesting this one for a while. The book is “Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity” by Nancy Pearcey. This was not an easy read for me, but well worth it. Let me try to explain why without boring you.

In our church, we have come to adopt a four chapter view of the Gospel story. This is not our idea and not a new idea, but it makes a ton of sense to me. The story the way we understand it starts not with the two story idea of sin and salvation, but with Creation. We and the world are created by God and the way God created us was good. The way things were created was the way it “OUGHT” to be. We came into the world, however, and took God’s plan into our own hands and did our own thing. Thus, sin enters the world and screws things up. This is the way it “IS” but not the way it “OUGHT” to be. The solution is redemption - God’s plan for resorting not only man, but the world to Himself. When we look at this plan, we see the way the world “CAN” be if we follow God’s plan. Finally, we look down the road to a new creation. A time when God’s plan will again come to perfection and the world “WILL” be the way it was created to be once again. As creations of God, we are called to live within His plan, to help fulfill His plan, to help restore the world and all that is in it (including people). Nancy Pearsey uses a three chapter version of this message (she combines chapters three and four) and explains why it is so compelling and why it is so helpful in her book.

A bottom line is summarizing this book might be to say it helps one form a more complete Christian worldview. I know that this may not sound fun and to some, it may even sound ugly (the notion of worldview is often misrepresented and therefore discarded). Yet, I believe Mrs. Pearcey is right on track in saying that everyone has a worldview and we must not only understand our view, but know more about how that worldview answers some of life’s most important questions. As Christians, and as youth leaders, we have done a good job of helping people know “the facts” but we don’t always help people connect the dots. Let me explain a bit more…

A helpful insight that Mrs. Pearcey brings out is the bifurcation of the mind. Our world (and Pearcey traces the roots as to how we got to where we are today) separates life into to realms, fact and value. Facts are the things that deal in science and empirical evidence. These are the things that can be “known.” Values are connected with religion and are held as subjective. Our culture has made the realm of “fact” to be what we talk about in the public square and the realm of “value” to be confined to the private life of an individual and the two have no connection, no relevance to one another. Therefore your private value system has no business in determining the public policy for this or that. You can see examples of this everywhere, from President Clinton’s scandal, to the “battle cry” discussion on marko’s blog. Of course the problems raised by ron luce and his ministry are a problem for the city of san fran. But the city is not going to listen to what ron has to say because he is dealing in value and they have no traction in the public square where fact rules the day. As ministries we must reculture and re-architect our language and the arguments we have in order to be heard in the public square and ultimately make a difference in redeeming our world.

How is this relevant to junior high ministry? Good question. I need to process this a lot in order to be equipped to answer that fully. However, if we are not helping students see the dichotomous life they are living when they place their faith in that “value” realm and pull it out only on Sunday, then we set them up for a miserable failure in post high school life when they are picked apart by people who can pick apart some of the “holes” in their faith system. If we don’t show students how to connect their faith with every part of their life and how it answers all of life’s hardest questions what good are we doing? If all we’re doing is transferring information, we may create good Bible quizzers or “good Christian kids” but will we see life transformation? Will we see students fall in love with Jesus? Will we see students really know whom we are asking them to love? Will we help students see that life with Jesus is about living in His Kingdom now, not gaining access to heaven later?