Teaching Students the Beautiful Gospel
Editor’s Note: this is the second article in this month’s “Cultural Apologetics” series. Cultural Apologetics enables Christians to built a bridge between the world of Scripture/theology and the world of culture. Our hope is that this series will empower youth workers to better communicate the truth and beauty and power of God’s Word to students.
Youth groups tend to fall in three categories: heart-forward, mind-forward, and strength-forward. Heart-forward youth groups tend to emphasize emotional experiences, teaching often on the struggles of teenage existence, seeking to offer a very compassionate Gospel (complete with a lot of hugs). Mind-forward youth groups are more apologetic and academic, looking to equip students with a rational Gospel full of logic and truth. Strength-forward youth groups are packed to the gills with opportunities to serve: missions trips, service projects, etc. These groups focus on putting “hands and feet” to a Gospel that helps in the restoration of what is broken around them. What can often be lost in the shuffle of these equally helpful (yet one-dimensional) approaches is the need to love God with all our soul. And the soul aches for beauty.
In my own cycle of ministry, there are highs and lows, days of plenty and days that feel empty. After I’ve exercised my mind with a good theology book, my heart with a Psalm, and my strength with some chair-stacking, I often keep coming back to this YouTube video as a source of refreshment. In it, Jacob Collier forms an impromptu choir of his audience and with a few simple motions of his hands creates a beautiful, powerful experience. It’s a simple concept, yet it touches on a deep longing in my heart, one that I believe is at the heart of the gospel we preach to our students.
We Crave a Beautiful Gospel
Why are videos like the one above so satisfying during those long days of laboring in Youth Ministry? Because it’s beautiful, and because it ends. When the notes are just right and the ending is perfect, it doesn’t simply make logical sense; it satisfies the soul to see beauty on display. Consider a student’s joy when showing you a finished Lego set, Minecraft world of their own creation, or a simple video of someone power washing their decrepit patio back to life.
Why do we keep watching and building these things? Why is there a deep sense of satisfaction that we get from these projects? Because they’re beautiful, and because they end complete. In the midst of the demands of their busy lives, students seeing something that is simply beautiful and complete can cause an almost euphoric experience. I believe this longing is rooted in the Gospel. Scripture, like all good stories, ends with a happy ending–the perfect ending to the perfect story. Our hearts ache for the truth of the Gospel to be realized, for the beautiful tale to be complete.
The “Beautiful Gospel”: Shalom
The foundation of the Bible’s story is the concept of shalom: the way things are supposed to be. In the beginning, everything is at peace with God, man, and the world. The introduction of sin in Genesis 3 disrupts that, as the curse affects the relationships between these three. Now, human existence is characterized by a profound sense of unrest spiritually, relationally, and physically. The hope of the Gospel, first announced in Gen. 3:15, is that God would make a way for the curse of sin to be undone, for shalom to once again be experienced. What Christ would accomplish would lead to a return to the way things were meant to be.
In your teaching, are you taking opportunities for yourself and your students to be affected by this beautiful Gospel? Do you see how the stories of Scripture cohere and lead to their ultimate fulfillment in Christ? Or is every conclusion to your lesson just a cog in a logical argument, a means to promote the next mission trip, or a fleeting emotional experience? Do your students leave your teaching enchanted, awestruck and captured, seeing the Gospel as the satisfaction of their deepest longings, as the means by which they will be made complete?
Difficulties of Teaching a Beautiful Gospel
There are obstacles to such teaching, to be sure. Partially because our natural tendency is to present the Gospel as simple math: our sin + God’s grace = heaven. However, if you describe the Gospel this way, without speaking into the deeper needs that they wrestle with daily, students might leave with a solution that makes sense in their mind, but doesn’t affect their soul. Likewise, if you try to preach what is beautiful without it speaking to your own soul, you can often present a patchwork gospel that seems convoluted and irrelevant, leaving your students even hungrier than when they started. It’s like when you’re hoping for a compliment like “beautiful” and you’re left with “cute” = there may be an objective quality that is vaguely appealing, but they have not been captured by it.
Or perhaps you, like me, sometimes avoid the “ugly” side of Scripture and only address the lovely verses that your students know by heart. We think that an ugly story, or a repulsive action within the pages of Scripture might create an ugly Gospel: why would God use people and situations like this? In reality, the reason those stories are so important for our students is that they highlight the need for resolution that only the Gospel can truly offer: they are the dark backdrop to the radiant hope the Gospel provides. If we cover up David’s affair with Bathsheba or the bumbling patriarchs or the brutal prophets that seem unsavory, our students looking for a satisfying and complete Gospel that speaks to every need may instead receive a Gospel that feels like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound.
The Reward of Teaching the Beautiful Gospel
The Gospel is beautiful. Don’t overstep the word “finished” in the finished work of Christ. Don’t miss the beautifully crafted words, stories, characters, and world that reveal the desires and character of the beautiful God who gave them to us! When you find beauty in the Gospel, your teaching becomes warm, excited, and healing. When Christ’s work is spoken of as complete, finished, and satisfying, the pressure of manufacturing beauty is removed. You become a revealer of an already beautiful gift, like a blacklight catching the inherent light of the gospel and putting it on display for students to marvel at.
Yes, there is work to be done to present something lovely and satisfying, but if you aren’t soul-satisfied by the text, no amount of work can produce that in your tone. You can’t give to others what you haven’t experienced yourself. But when those verses click together in your heart, when the story satisfies your longing, and when you see the loveliness of God’s grace to you in the muck and mire of the difficult passages, your teaching will look and sound different. When your soul is stirred by beauty, and your eyes are fixed on the source of all beauty, you are equipped with all you need to reach the deepest needs of those in your care. May we leave our students not merely with a set of statements to adhere to, or a task to accomplish, or a feeling to chase, but the desire to become a soul enamored with a beautiful Gospel.