Last week I had the opportunity to do some seminars at Camp St. Christopher. It was Sr Session (high school) and my favorite age group to speak to. I led two seminars. One on surviving after camp… along the lines of how do we keep growing. The other was on persecution and suffering for the gospel. In that I shared some of the news headlines of Christians around the world facing persecution. To my surprise the majority of the 30+ students were not at all aware of the fact that Christians are being killed in other countries at significant rates these days. They were slightly more aware of the oppression of Christians in this country – people who have faced difficulty when standing for their Christian convictions.
Why are students so unaware of what is going on in the world? Are our youth groups not communicating the news? Are we missing the chance to teach students how faithful God is despite our suffering? I think so. Shadrach and the boys as well as Daniel are lessons that are extremely relevant to this generation and the lesson is not about their faithfulness as much as it is about God’s faithfulness. Jesus warned us, as did Paul, that we will face hardship and suffering for the gospel. Why are we not communicating that to students?
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