Monthly column for youth leaders: a millennium meditation

You are sick of it, and your group probably are as well. The Millennium: it's been hyped at us until our ears have started to ring. Yes it's more than just an excuse to engage in a party, it's even more than a Robbie Williams song. But how do we get that across to our young people? I don't think we can blame them for disenchantment and apathy on this subject, but that doesn't mean that we simply shrug our shoulders and give up. Here's an idea for a Millennium meditation that might just help to refocus their thinking on the God who made it
all possible.

Give your group a potted history of the last 2,000 years. Your aim in selecting what to include is to show how God has worked throughout that time to work things together for the good of his people, the church. Wherever possible, take events that seem at first glance to be a disaster and show how God turned them round into good. Below are a few ideas of things to include, but they aren't exhaustive by any means. Please don't feel wedded to this selection, and if you don't feel up to the job of enlarging on them, your pastor (who has probably studied church history) may well be the best man to consult. The important thing is not to show off your knowledge, but to bring home to your young people that Jesus has been in control of events on earth for a long long time, and still is now. The more you can tailor your input to the concerns and interests of your group and your area, the better the reception it is likely to get.

* 1st Century: The Emperor Nero begins brutal oppression of the church. Many Christians are savagely tortured and killed, and the church is scattered. Far from being the end of the road for Christianity, this simply results in new branches of the church springing up wherever individual Christians found themselves, and the church grows even stronger.

* 4th Century: Although Christianity is adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire, trouble quickly looms. Barbarian invasions shatter the Roman Empire, but even this only serves to spread Christianity more widely in Northern and Central Europe.

* 14th & 15th Centuries: Power struggles within its leadership result in the Church losing its way. Popes are more concerned with political power and influence than with the spiritual and the theological. In response to this, a strong movement towards having the Bible available in the common language of the ordinary Christian begins.

* Year 2000: Finish with something relevant to your area. For example: in Bournemouth where I live, no one other than the churches saw the millennium as something worth putting on special events for. This could be seen as a lack of interest in the significance of the 2000th anniversary of Christ. On the other hand, it means that the large celebration organised by the local churches, with a predicted attendance well into the thousands, has no secular rivals to compete with. A great evangelistic opportunity is there for the taking.

When you finish your whistle-stop tour of history, point out that apart from the first digit in the year, nothing will have changed on New Years Day 2000. God will still be in charge of the world, and he will still be working things out for the good of his people and for the good of his kingdom. Thank God that he stays the same. But he doesn't want us to stay the same. God wants us to change with the new millennium, but he wants the same change that he has always wanted from us: becoming more like Jesus. In any year, his work is to groom his people for heaven by helping us to live lives that bring glory to him. Whether it's the year 2000, the year 1, or anywhere in-between, God's desire for his people is that we get holy and get obedient.

Finally, lead the group in a time of prayer, thanking God that he is an unchanging God who wants us to change, and works through his church to bring change to the world. As a group bring difficult situations in the world and in your church before him, and ask for his help. Finally, give everyone an opportunity to privately pray about one thing that God might want them to change in their lives. Then go and do something fun - God likes that too.

EN congratulates Steve on the announcement of his engagement to Ann. Brave girl!

Steve Couch

© Evangelicals Now - January 2000
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