What Surge is All About

Originally posted as "The Purpose of Surge", October 2013

Seven years ago, as I was sifting through a mountain of details, I had a moment of what I'd call Big Picture Insight. Only the insight was a question, which I scribbled down and which gnawed away at me in the years to come. The question was, simply, "What's the best tangible benefit a kid can take away from their involvement in our weekend programs?"

Is it some nugget of truth? The ability to express and defend their faith? The books of the Bible, memorized? Is it a warm feeling toward church? Same-age relationships? Is it a chance to serve others?

It turns out the answer is something that sounds about as cliched as it can be: it's God. [The answer is always "God" in church, isn't it?]

So that's the task. How do we get these kids to God, and get God to these kids? Not information about God - that's relatively easy. Scores of young people are walking away from churches with lots of knowledge about God. Many of them think they have a handle on God: he's ancient, he's static, and he's pretty much irrelevant to now. (When we make church too much like school, it's inevitable that kids will at some point feel "done" because after all, school is something you eventually finish and then move on.)

No, the objective has to be nothing less than kids encountering God. And we want it to happen often, again and again. It might be in our room, or in the quietness of their own bedrooms at home. It might be in a moment of adversity, or at a camp, or standing in Yosemite. It might be in the midst of family, surrounded by people who love them, or in the loneliest moment of their lives. But God is there, and they meet him.

But how do we get kids to God, and God to kids?

First, we need to recognize and affirm that God is alive. And as such, he is active. Do we really believe in a God who is everywhere and can do anything? Because the modern cultural narrative is that God isn't anywhere and can't do anything, or at most, that God is somewhere and will hopefully act when we want him to.

Exposing that lie does not happen by skillful argumentation. It's not the product of logical proofs or flashy showmanship. God can use all of those things, but it isn't really until he reaches beyond our efforts to touch an individual human soul that a person really encounters God. God is working specifically to reach your kid right now. He is trying all sorts of ways and using all sorts of things.

Secondly, we need to find where God is, and take kids there. I'll never forget the first time I saw a dad teaching his daughter to surf. This North Dakota boy just assumed surfing was learned the hard way, by trial and error, but that day at the beach, I saw exactly what the dad was doing. He was waist-deep in the water, holding the back of the surfboard, guiding his daughter into the wave - and then letting go and letting the wave do the work of carrying her. Because, really, how could it work any other way? If the dad held on too long, or kept her away from the waves, or pushed the board all the way to shore, or never let go, we wouldn't really say the girl had surfed, would we?

Now think about God and your kid. God is always at work. We don't create anything. What we do is steer kids into "the wave" and let it carry them. "Spiritual" growth comes from the Spirit. If God's not in a God encounter, it isn't a God encounter. And He will do the work, if we let him. And that's the purpose of Surge: to come alongside the work God is already doing in each 4th, 5th, and 6th grader and create some "spiritual momentum" by continually putting them in God's path.

What does a God encounter look like? Well, you know it when you see it. For one thing, it's pretty personal. You'll see kids gain insights and act in ways that show you they've connected with something beyond themselves. For another, it's unpredictable - you really can't manufacture it. It's not uncommon for kids at this age to go through a period of fascination with God. They suddenly have lots of questions, and they get into reading the Bible or other Christian literature. What's happening? They're meeting him, in a way we can't engineer, but we can only nurture. Nurture doesn't mean ignore, but it means we don't push too hard and we don't try to control it (the wave is the wave; it will do what it will) . Sometimes the best thing we can do is get out of the way of what God is trying to do!

That's how I see our weekend ministry, our midweek ministry, our camps, our outreach events (like KidsGames)...all of them are "teeing up" potential God encounters, and building the infrastructure for continued God encounters years down the road. That doesn't mean everything we do is stained glass and pipe organs (come to think of it, none of what we do is stained glass and pipe organs), things that would actually stand in the way of people meeting God. A lot of what we do might not look incredibly "churchy". It may even be fun! But that's ok, because God and fun are not mutually exclusive. I don't want kids growing up thinking that all of God's stuff is gloomy and sad and serious. Nor do I want them to think that if fun or smiling or laughter is involved, God can't be in it. Do you?

But there's a longer-term goal associated with Surge, too. It is that one day we might see a generation of adult Christians who are unhindered in their worship of God: not weighed down by debt, addiction, dysfunctional relationships, materialism, isolation, workaholism, narcissism, etc. In a word, I want to see a generation that is free. "It is for freedom that you have been set free," the Apostle Paul writes, but how many of us have that freedom - our salvation - and still live under burdens that we cannot or will not shed? The better way is to live in fellowship with God - God in us, us in God - and be so deeply invested in that relationship that our lives grow rock-solid: God-centered, Spirit-filled, truth-founded, mission-minded, others-focused, and purpose-driven.

That's what we must ultimately train kids for. Lives like that do not come about overnight. And they will not happen unless kids start to meet Him.