@Jonnymainstage (I would have linked to his Twitter page but I’m posting this from my phone) tweeted this thought about Catalyst West:
“Are conferences just the spiritual high for adults? Like the spiritual mountain high for the youth?”
I’ve spent a lot of time at youth camps and have seen a lot of emotional and spiritual highs. This phenomenon is best seen at junior high camp on decision night.
A speaker challenges the students to make a decision for Christ or to repent and turn back to Christ. The emotion starts small with a few tears and sniffles throughout the crowd. Then, like a zombie virus outbreak, the emotion starts to spread.
More sniffles are sniffed.
More tears are shed.
Eventually a wave of emotion pours over the students until they’re all crying and wailing. Some students are crying because they’ve been convicted by the Holy Spirit but other students are crying because everyone else is crying and they don’t want to be left out.
It’s easy for adults to question the validity of these emotional and spiritual experiences for students. Do the students have an actual desire to change or have they just been caught up in an emotional moment? For some students the experience does lead to actual change. For others, though, it’s nothing more than a moment, an emotional and spiritual high that exits just as quickly as it arrived.
The same thing can happen to adults.
@Jonnymainstage’s question highlights a very real struggle for those of us who attend conferences, retreats or workshops. We’re challenged in the same way as junior high students. At these events we’re often convicted and pushed to make changes to our lives, relationships, vocations and ministries.
In the moment, as the zombie virus spreads throughout the room, we get caught up in the passion and the emotion. In that moment as tears are streaming down our faces we commit to change, to be better, to be different. But then the lights come up, we remember that we’re hungry and we move on with our lives. We never leverage a powerful moment to enact lasting change.
We have the same problem as junior high students. Sure we have mixed-gender seating and know the benefits of deodorant, but we often experience the same thrilling highs and the same disappointing lows. If we want to be different then we have to be willing to move beyond emotion and into action.
God speaks to us through emotionally and spiritually charged moments. Once those moments pass, however, we have to discern an immediate next step. It doesn’t have to be a big step it just has to be something we can do quickly to get us on the right path.
Even as I was typing this post I was reminded of an emotional experience I had at Catalyst West. Andy Stanley said that it takes courage to ask for help. I felt convicted by that statement, I had an emotional experience, but hadn’t yet taken that first step. So, before I wrote that last paragraph, I sent an email to a friend asking for some help.
It wasn’t a big step, but it was a step, and that’s how it has to start.
God will use emotionally and spiritually charged moments to get our attention. Once he has our attention, though, it’s up to us to leverage that moment for lasting change. It would be great if we could jump from the moment to the conclusion but we can’t. So with the end in mind and the power of the Holy Spirit, we take that first step.
It’s the first step from who we were or where we were, to the who or the where for which we were created and intended.
How have emotional experiences been the launching pad for your spiritual growth?
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