That's why institutions like organized sports or the school can be so popular for teens. They provide us a place with people who look like us, think like us, and have the same passion as us. And so they cocoon us in this bubble of belonging - at least, until we graduate or win the championship. Suddenly we're on our own again, set adrift in the "real world," and we're still looking for that lasting acceptance. This lands us in the first reason that the Christian teen needs to be involved in their local church:
1. The church fosters true community
The secular world has this preconceived caricature of the church as a place of judgement. Church members sit in their pews and take notes as the pastor lists all the people they hate. And then they leave the church and get their hate on.
For those of us inside the church, we know what a nonsensical idea that is. The church is not built on the bedrock of judgement and self-righteousness, but community. Christ died for the church, a group of believers, not just one or two individuals. As it says in Ephesians 5:25-26,
"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word."
And so we fellowship and love and serve Christ together with the covenant community of God's people. It was never God's plan that we go at life alone. He has called us to join together with other genuine believers to worship Christ, fellowship, pursue holiness, and fight sin as a community.
But some people, not just teens, think that if they're Christians, they can be part of the universal church (all believers all over the world) without being part of the local church (a local community of God's people). In fact, when I went to a Christian-run summer camp a few years ago, I met a girl the same age as me and we got to talking a little bit about our testimonies. After we talked about being saved, I brought up the church. I told her which church I was a part of and then asked her where she was involved. Her answer was given awkwardly. "My family doesn't really go to church," she said. "We just kind of do our own thing." Her answer represents a popular, yet disastrous and terribly sad idea.
In an open letter last February to Donald Miller, the author of Blue Like Jazz who came out saying that local church membership is not necessary, Jonathan Leeman wrote this,
I don't know how we can say we love and belong to the church without loving and belonging to a church. Or saying we want to connect with God, but we won't listen to God's Word for only 45 minutes out of all the minutes in a week. Ultimately, it's like claiming we're righteous in Christ, but not bothering to "put on" that righteousness with how we live. Let me say it again: Our love and unity with the church should manifest itself in a church.
The whole New Testament teaches and demonstrates the idea that we are to covenant together with local bodies of believers to declare our faith in Christ. And teenagers like me and that girl from summer camp need to be a part of it. The church is a community for all believers, no matter what their ages. There's no such thing as an age-limit on church involvement. Perhaps "official" church membership, but not involvement.
I think sometimes teenagers shy away from the diversity of the church community, because there are so many different people with their own peculiar issues and problems. If I enroll in my high school drama club, all I have to see are people the same age as me who are interested in the same things as me. I choose who I want to spend more time with. The church thrusts you together with people of all ages, people of all intellects, people of all interests and personalities and problems. Sometimes it's awkward. Sometimes it's messy.
But a community does not mean a group of perfect people. It means a group of people bound together for a common purpose. For the church, that purpose is the gospel. So that means we have a responsibility to these people we're bound together with. We bear their burdens. We overlook their offenses. We call them on sin, but encourage them in holiness. We rejoice in our differences yet even more in our unity. And that's what teens need.
Matt McCollough said this about our diverse community:
There is sweet rest in belonging to one people, for better or worse, and there is the opportunity for displaying costly, Christlike love. We're called to die to our narrow interests and to what we might hope to enjoy or become on our own. But we're called to a truer life in our identification with Christ and his body on earth.
The church provides a community of acceptance for the Christian teen as they embrace their calling in Christ and pursue holiness with the family of God.
Image Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Sky-church-steeple_-_West_Virginia_-_ForestWander.jpg