Lately, I've spent a lot of time reflecting on my traditional, evangelical Christian upbringing, and how it affects my life today. I've spent time reflecting by myself, processing with others, and even talking to other teens and young adults about their experiences in the Church.
This topic of "rededication" keeps coming to the surface, and I'm going to attempt to break it down a little today. When I was young, it was such a central part of my faith, that I can't talk about my childhood walk with God without it.
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When I was a kid, I remember doing this super emotional thing at summer camp and youth convention and during short term missions trips. We called it, "rededicating your life to Christ."
This usually takes place after an emotionally charged sermon, or around a circle in a small group. The speaker or leader will initiate the rededication by asking rhetorical questions like, "Are you ready to live for Christ again?" or "Do you need to feel God's presence new in your life?" or even, "Have you fallen into a sinful lifestyle? Are you ready to turn back to God?"
Then, droves of teary eyed teens and young adults do things like come forward to the alter, stand to show God they're really serious, write words on rocks, hug their neighbor, and all sorts of other uncomfortable actions that signify that they are giving their life back to Christ. Even though this is the umpteenth time they've done this, they're hoping this is the one that sticks.
Growing up in a majority evangelical setting, this was a huge theme in my faith growing up.
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Anyone else remember this? I remember assuming that this is how Christian life worked. You "gave your life to Christ" initially for the first time, with the original little prayer, and then once you hit an acceptable age you got baptized. Then after baptism, you went through this cycle of "rededication" every so often to make sure you were keeping up.
After a few rounds of this, I was left really wondering if this was all that Christian life was. Dedicate, try to be as good and moral a person as possible, rededicate, try to keep it up for awhile, rededicate, etc...
Now, I also remembered learning that when you are "saved" your sins are forgiven, and God's grace covers you. Yet, here I was, feeling like I needed to be "re-saved" every summer.
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I think I can boil it down to two main reasons I felt this way.
1. Peer pressure.
Everyone else is doing it.
The speaker is older/smarter/more holy than me. They know what's best.
I should do it, because if I don't, people will think I'm not godly enough, or God won't think I'm good enough.
These situations are extremely tense and confusing in a variety of ways.
I definitely felt peer pressured into a lot of these rededication times.
2. I didn't know what a Christian life was supposed to look like.
Sure, I was around Christians all the time. I mean seriously, all the time. School, church, family... I remember once in high school, trying to think of someone I knew who wasn't a Christian, and no one came to mind.
I was totally and completely immersed. Drowning.
Yet, here I was, a fumbling teen, caught in a toxic cycle of rededication, with no idea how to actually live out my calling as a disciple of Christ.
I had about a million and one questions, but I never asked them because I believed that somehow everyone was already smarter than me, and that I would look stupid.
I had a big, fat cloud of doubt that I tried as hard as I could not to acknowledge because I thought it was sinful.
I thought maybe this "rededication" would somehow reconcile me to God and make me "right" again, because it always seemed like I was in the wrong.
Maybe if I rededicated hard enough, God would see me and somehow start to give me a vision for what I was supposed to do with my life.
And that's exactly the thing. The theme that carries through is that through all of this fumbling and questioning and spiritual and relational tension and confusion, all I wanted was a call. I wanted a direction, a path. I wanted God to use me. So I kept rededicating as a desperate cry to God, to show me what there was for me, to show me I was worthy, and that I wasn't alone.
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To make a long story short, my late teens an early 20s were formative years for my faith, which I'll probably write more extensively about later. I all but left the Church, got ahold of some books that made me feel not so alone, and made friends with a lot of non-christians.
I realized that other people were feeling the same way, asking the same questions, doing the things I had always felt passionate about but never thought I was "allowed" to do as a Christian woman.
After growing up in a Mennonite church and attending a Mennonite high school, I finally learned what a true anabaptist was.
I was learning and living and practicing my faith. I had opportunities to put the things I learned into action and one day I realized, I no longer felt the need to rededicate my life to Christ. I began to realize, that my daily actions, the times when I picked up my cross, were my rededication.
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What if rededicating your life to Christ, meant something different than an alter call?
What if instead of trying to feel some magical power wash over us and instantly change us, we intentionally committed to working towards reconciliation and kingdom building?
What if we truly walked alongside teens and young adults who feel this way? Because let me tell you, there sure are a lot of them.
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We rededicate our lives to Christ every time we say yes to reconciliation work.
We rededicate our lives to Christ every time we choose peace over violence, fear, and hatred.
We rededicate our lives to Christ every time we create community, every time we stand in solidarity, every time we give, every time we serve, every time we fully surrender and let God's work and words flow through us.
We rededicate our lives through everyday actions, and all along the way, God tells us that we are enough. God tells us that we are covered by grace. God leads us gently.
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May we all feel as though we are always enough.
May we rededicate our lives to the work of the Kingdom, through daily actions.
May we walk with each other on the journey.
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Grace + Peace
