Who I know...

I haven't posted here for a while. To be honest I just haven't felt any of my thoughts have been worth putting up.

But recently as I've been working with the youth here in Deception Bay I have been rolling this thought process around in my head.

Young people love to 'name drop'... and they seem to respect people who have met, or know, famous people.  In meeting teens at the local high school, kids at the primary school or even just in the relationship building with teens/kids at my church it's very easy to get into the name dropping routine as it does impress them, and make me look 'cool'.

Being a motorsports chaplain I can name drop with the best of them. I have had personal conversations with nearly all the current V8 Supercar drives, been to some of their weddings, and hung out with some pretty big names.  I once played in a band where Guy Sebastian sang as a backup (though it was well before his Australian Idol time), I have a mate who plays for the Gold Coast Suns, I use to be part of the Brisbane Christian music scene and a lot of my friends went on to work with some of the best in the Christian music industry.  It's very easy to tell stories about who I know, because they are cool people. Young people have a much greater inclination for 'hero worship' than older generations, and you really get some credit points when you can feed their intoxication of connectedness to fame.

And why wouldn't you do it??? Because when I think about the 'coolness' of talking about 'Who I am' as opposed to "Who I know" I can't think how I'd get any connection with young people.  If all I talked about was who I am I could only say things like 'I'm a discontented lonely guy', 'I struggle everyday with not being good enough', 'I find myself falling into sin and not being able to do anything about it', 'I annoy the hell out of people', 'Sometimes I just feel like giving up'.

Who I am is a pretty pitiful picture.  My sense of self worth discourages me from sharing this with young people, because why would they then want anything to do with someone like that?  It's much easier to talk myself up by connecting myself with someone famous.

And thinking about that I find my answer... not to connect myself with someone famous... but to connect myself with Jesus.  By knowing Jesus I can say things like, 'I am loved more than anything I can understand', 'I am completely free', 'I am of great worth', 'Someone thought so much of me they died for me', 'I can do amazing things', 'I have been made a completely new person'.

But the thing is, young people don't see Jesus as that 'cool famous person' (like saying I had spent a heap of time in the Holden Racing Team garage with the drivers last weekend...) - so for it to have the same effect I need to be willing to share the 'Who I am' so the "Who I know (Jesus)' has a bigger (and cooler) impact.  That means I have to get over my sense of self worth and see my worth as all in Jesus.  Then maybe I can effectively communicate my life, His love, and their need for grace.