Drones, ISIS and Youth Ministry, Part 2
Part 1 of Drones, ISIS and Youth Ministry ended with a dangling question:
What would a Counter-Terrorism Youth Ministry look like?
Part one presented the successful recruiting, training and deploying of young people as global Jihadists. The matter was likely inflamed by the 2011 CIA drone killing in Yemen of a 16-year-old American citizen son in search of his father, the influential radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki killed by a CIA drone two weeks prior. I propose a four-pillar counter-terrorism youth ministry strategy.
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I. Teach youth about Jesus.
Introduce our youth to history's greatest leader and most influential human. "But isn't that what churches do?" Well, for many-not really, and sadly, for others-not often. We teach Western kids how to become Christians, join Christian groups and behave like Christians believing one day they will be afforded Heaven. Most young people of faith consider Jesus a divine broker who forgave their youthful indiscretions and bought their entrance ticket to His future magic kingdom. Very few know Him as Master Teacher and Mentor guiding their daily lives as He would live it if He were them. Enroll them as students of Professor Jesus before they leave high school. Few graduate and leave home with a profound and personal understanding of Jesus.
II. Train youth to follow Jesus.
We parents and youth workers must take youth back to the proto-evangelical gospel, i.e., the Kingdom of God, not just the news of who does or does not avoid an unhappy place after death. (Eternity will take care of itself.) When students discover life in His Kingdom is now available to everyone from the poor beggar to the popular kid, they encounter the option to seek His Kingdom first. Our youth can actually "obey all these things I commanded". The Sermon on the Mount ceases being hyperbole. Through the mentoring relationship with a loving Headmaster, students can develop the character to turn the other cheek to a rival sibling or bullying peer. What starts in the family room is initially practiced on the playground long before it bombs the battlefield. If we teach & train, preach & practice the way of Jesus, His young followers will mimic, "Father, please let my attacker off the hook because he is clueless." Loving an enemy will become their first and best habit. Unless we model and lead the world's youth to trust Jesus enough to follow Him into His Father's loving Kingdom, their hearts will not change, their wills will not be governed by His will, and the world will not know His love as the only way peace on Earth will overpower terror.
III. Prepare youth for a world we never knew.
Students must understand the harsh life at "Universe High" or "World-Community College." They cannot be ambushed by the rapidly changing, wildly threatening, ghastly globe awaiting them. No longer can we say, "When I was your age..." Enrolling students in the Jesus college courses on real life offering real truth of real love engaging real wrongs is mandatory to prepare them for what lies ahead. We can no longer speculate what tomorrow holds. Faith and trust fostering love and wisdom are prerequisites.
IV. Teach youth about Mohammed's older brother Jesus and Jesus' younger brother Mohammed.
In January 2015, the Ayatollah Khamenei beckoned the youth of Europe and North America: "Try to gain a direct and firsthand knowledge of this religion. Gain information about Islam through the Qur'an and the life of its great Prophet. Attempts to find answers to these questions will provide you with an appropriate opportunity to discover new truths."
The Islam and Christianity of today's parents are being shredded by the buzz saw of a brutal, post-modern world. The Ayatollah's invitation into Islam's views of blessings - a good life, salvation, prayer, fasting, or Allah need not unleash Western parental panic or a clergy crisis. Muslims revere Jesus as a great prophet. If our global youth seek to know and follow a Jesus whose Kingdom does reign in the 21st century, we can trust Jesus as Mohammed's older brother and divine fore-running prophet to reveal His righteous (good) life. Wisdom will be proven by her fruit. As we seek, discover, follow and emulate Jesus and raise the next generation to do the same, Jesus is competent to handle His reputation and agenda in the face of our neighbor's religious ideology. Our bumper sticker mentality, "My Prophet can beat up your Prophet," will not jettison the jihad.
In the early 2011 school year a teenager longing for his dad launched a futile and fatal reverse prodigal son journey. Undoubtedly a seething hate exploded in his family, friends, neighbors and his global Muslim family when this fatherless 16-year old was droned away while eating with his buddies, possibly gazing at their smart phones, singing the latest Taylor Swift song and laughing over a viral YouTube video.
This is the place into which we graduate our students. It is still a world "God so loved." The Son of God we introduce to our youth must be a global Jesus, a powerful Jesus, a real Jesus and a present Jesus. His command, "love your neighbor" is far more difficult now than the pre-ISIS, pre-worldwide Internet globe when I started youth ministry. The vital prescription for survival is imminent and existential especially for our world's youth.
