Athletes in Action - amazing...

Last weekend, I had the privilege of traveling to Xenia, Ohio – along with my brother and fellow pastor, Joe Herd – and sharing with a group of 350 athletes who had gathered at the Athletes in Action conference center in this mid-western town. These weren't just athletes - but young men and women who took the time and effort to meet one another - in fact, this retreat happens EVERY year - to discuss how they might grow closer to Jesus of Nazareth - and somehow impact the world in which they live.

And I gotta tell you - if this group of 18-25 year olds represents even a portion of the future of the church of Jesus in the world - I was impressed...and I am hopeful.

We began Friday evening by sharing the hard reality of the pain - the nightmare of the pain - in present-day culture and in the lives of the people we live with. In some ways, it seems at times like the enemy is winning. We talked about what is NOT working to heal that pain - politics, education, money - even the church with our conventional "programs" that much of culture seems to ignore...and we spoke of the words and example of Jesus, who said on the night before He was crucified, "If you will love one another, as I have loved you...all will know that you are My followers...". [John 13:34-35] Of course, Jesus left us picture after picture, story after story of what that love looks like when we live it out - basically it boils down to touching lepers and washing the feet of lepers...as we, too, have been touched by Him in our leprous selves.

Saturday morning we suggested that everywhere this precious love of Jesus has been lived out – no matter what the cost – the Kingdom of God has come. [Note the growth of the early church, in the powerful and diabolical Roman Empire, from 10 thousand to 15 million in 200 years, armed only with the love of Jesus Christ and precious little else.] But we also noted that Jesus said we could only love others “as I have loved you.” In other words, this kind of love is impossible to give…if we haven’t first received it ourselves.

So we talked about why some of us don’t really know or feel the love of God personally and how our experiences growing up and other wounds in our life can create a vacuum in our spirit that literally cries out to be filled. We can’t love others – because the emptiness causes us to be all about ourselves. And we try and try to fill the vacuum with everything under the sun – but we finally get to the place where we realize that only the love of Jesus Christ will “fill us with all the fullness of God” [Ephesians 3:19]. We also talked about beginning to grieve the losses that created the vacuum in the first place – and then learning to forgive…and finally let go – and how wonderful it is to realize that the shaming voices that have literally controlled our lives are starting to fade and we are beginning to hear the voice of our God calling us His beloved sons and daughters.

On Saturday afternoon – we worked at applying His love to our gender, and the fact that God’s plan involves us forming male and female partnerships in order to bring the dominion of His Kingdom to the earth [Genesis 1:28]. But how can we form these partnerships if we don’t even know what it means to be created male and female – in God’s image – in the first place? A panel of incredible men and women helped us wrestle with what these partnerships might look like – and how to de-sexualize them and learn to live authentically with one another as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ – with our particular gifts of relationship and beauty and strength and courage complementing each other in the battle with our enemy for control of the earth.

Finally, Sunday morning, my brother Joe Herd and I tried to apply the love of Jesus Christ to one more area – the area of ethnicity and race. We tried to show how the church was never intended to be a “club or guild” – with everyone looking and talking and acting alike – but “a whole new version of the human race” [N.T. Wright]. The church – this incredible, multifaceted diamond of humanity, all brought together through the death of Jesus and unified only IN Jesus – was intended to be a miraculous, first sign that Jesus was the true King and that His Kingdom was beginning to break through into the world. Joe [who happens to be black] and I [who happen to be white] admitted that we weren’t sure how “racial reconciliation” was supposed to work and that our experience of trying to “dismantle” the complex, satanic web of 300 years of racism in America had led both of us to deep frustration and sometimes despair. But the conclusion we BOTH had come to was that [once again] the love of Jesus Christ was strong enough and enduring enough to draw us together, and that we [Joe and Kevin] loved each other and were willing to die for one another and that maybe, just maybe, THIS LOVE OF JESUS is the answer for bringing all of us together today…which was Jesus’ intent for the church in the first place.

In and around the weekend, Joe and I had the privilege of dialoguing with student after student. We laughed together and cried together and shared our hearts together. I looked into the eyes of some of the most sincere young men and young women I have met on the planet – and felt their authenticity and their passion to grow and to heal and to love and be loved in the name of Jesus Christ. I was deeply touched and deeply moved by each of them and each personal story of both struggle and victory. In fact, I can’t get the faces out of my mind…I can’t stop thinking of the stories and the pain and the passion and the desire. I will never be the same after being with this group of young people – and can say, with Joe, that we love them with the love of Christ and are with them all the way home.

And one final note – the staff. I had the privilege of meeting with some of the finest leaders in the body of Jesus Christ – AIA staff from universities all over the United States – who love these student athletes with the deepest parts of their heart and soul. And I promise you they are not in it for the money because they don’t make much money and they aren’t in it for the fame because most of the time no one knows they exist except the students they love…and some of them serve the students while trying to raise families and nurture marriages and all of them serve the students while managing their own relationships and walk with Jesus Christ and their own baggage and issues and doubts and fears and dreams. And I just want to say to these staff – I love you – we love you – and we are with you, too, all the way home and want to serve you and support you and have your back in your calling to nurture the student athletes of our Division I schools. Peace to you, brothers and sisters, and thanks for welcoming Joe and I into your midst. We will never, ever be the same…and we will never, ever forget.