Are You a Red-Cup Christian? How to Live a Stand-Out Faith in a Fit-In World

© 2014 Lars Rood

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Credits Author: Lars Rood Executive Developer: Jason Ostrander Chief Creative Officer: Joani Schultz Editor: Rob Cunningham Cover Art and Production: Laura Wagner and Veronica Preston

ISBN 978-0-7644-9006-4

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Printed in the United States of America.

Acknowledgments

In other books I ’ve writ ten, I don’t think I ’ve ever formally acknowledged the youth workers who were involved in my l i fe

growing up. They had a profound impact on me, especial ly during middle school and my f irst couple of years of high

school. They loved me, always encouraged me, and made youth group a place that I always wanted to be. I hope that I model

that to the students that I work with today.

I ’d also l ike to thank my current Family Life Ministry team at Bel levue Presbyterian Church (Belpres) for being such a great team that real ly cares about young people and the transit ions

they make. With God’s blessing, we wil l help kids grow into young adults who have a stand-out faith.

Lastly, I ’d l ike to thank my family. I wri te because I feel cal led to i t , and you have al l supported me in many projects and made it so much fun to be transparent and honest. Thanks

for continuing to encourage me to grow into the man of God that I ’m supposed to be. My hope is that I model what I wri te about—and you four, above anyone else, have the freedom to

cal l me out when I don’t.

tABle of contentsI n t r o d u c t I o n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

PA r t 1 : P r o B l e m sChapter 1: Are You Like a Red Cup? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 2: Do You Want People to Know What’s inside? . . . . 9

Chapter 3: Are Your Faith and Life Consistent? . . . . . . . . . 13

Chapter 4: Do You Know What You’re Living For? . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter 5: Have You Moved Beyond a “Youth Group” Faith? 21

Chapter 6: Can People in Your Life Speak Truth to You? . . . 25

Chapter 7: Are You Trying to Fol low Both God and the World? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Chapter 8: Do You Want Jesus to Mess Up Your Life? . . . . . 33

PA r t 2 : n e e d sChapter 9: Being Real and Honest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Chapter 10: Knowing the Bible and Living it . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Chapter 11: Being Known by Others for Who You Are . . . . 49

Chapter 12: Using Your Gif ts and Talents . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Chapter 13: Leading a Life Ful l of Authentici ty . . . . . . . . . 57

Chapter 14: Fai l ing Well and Having Others Support You . . 61

Chapter 15: Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone Regularly 65

PA r t 3 : s o l u t I o n sChapter 16: Find a Church That Accepts You as You Are . . 73

Chapter 17: Find People Who Wil l Help You Stand Out . . . . 79

Chapter 18: Be Engaged in Action That Shows What You Bel ieve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Chapter 19: Study the Bible and Understand How it Relates to Your Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Chapter 20: Be in Community With Others Who Know And Love You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Chapter 21: Pursue More Than Just a “Youth Group” Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Chapter 22: Embrace a Faith That Doesn’t Just Belong to Your Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Chapter 23: Engage Your Doubts and Questions . . . . . . . 111

c o n c l u s I o n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

IntroductIon A few years ago I stood on a corner in Austin, Texas, watching thousands of col lege students stand around with red cups in their hands. At f i rst I just wondered what they were al l drinking. As I stood there I star ted ref lecting on the hundreds of high school students who had graduated from youth ministr ies I had overseen. I began wondering how many of those students had l ikely been in similar si tuations in col lege—standing around with a red cup in their hand, looking l ike everyone else.

But as I thought about what I was witnessing, I became less interested in the beverages inside those cups and more focused on what those cups represented. I kept thinking about how no one real ly knows what’s in that cup—just l ike no one real ly knows what’s going on inside of us. We can easi ly end up looking l ike everyone else on the outside and can fal l into the trap of becoming a “red-cup Christ ian.”

Since that day in Austin, I have ref lected a lot on students and their faith journey. I f ind myself wondering why some students had a walk with God that continued into adulthood while others,

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r ight after they graduated, seemed to just turn their backs on everything related to their faith.

As a youth pastor i t ’s hard to watch people walk away from their faith. I ’ve watched students—teenagers that I had spent al l kinds of t ime with—just chuck i t al l and walk away. We had talked about doubts, we sang worship songs, I shared my hear t, and I talked about the Bible. I had served alongside these teenagers local ly and overseas, and I felt l ike I had done everything to give them a robust faith that would stay strong.

I thought I had a pretty good handle on what needed to be done to make faith st ick. But how poorly I predicted future pathways, so much of the t ime. The teenager that I didn’t expect to continue to walk with Jesus did—while the student leaders in our group were often the quickest to fal l away.

I ’ve writ ten this book to encourage you to think deeply about your faith and to take some steps during high school to strengthen that faith before you graduate. This wil l take some work on your par t because you wil l have to be honest, transparent, and real about things that are hard. You’l l ul t imately have to share your deepest

vA r e yo u a r e d c u p c h r i s t i a n ?

struggles and thoughts with others as you move toward “being known” by other people.

This isn’t about looking the par t of a Christ ian. I ’m not concerned with how you dress, what you look l ike, or any exterior trappings of how the world (or the church) thinks a Christ-fol lower must appear. Instead, my hope—and my prayer—is that you wil l see movement in the faith you claim and the hear t for fol lowing Jesus that you’ve declared is important, that i t wi l l go from a place of being hidden inside of you to a place where people see i t clearly when they get to know you because your hear t is transparent.

The ult imate goal of this book is to encourage you to l ive a “stand-out faith in a f i t- in world.” The world wants you to act and l ive in a par t icular way, especial ly when you leave high school, but with a healthy mix of t ips, wisdom, actions, and ideas, your faith can transcend what the world is expecting you to do.

We wil l embark on our journey by f irst looking at some of the problems we have al l experienced when i t comes to our faith. The goal isn’t to poke holes in your faith or to point out f laws, but just to recognize some of the struggles you come up against and how they can affect you.

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The second par t of this book focuses on needs. We wil l examine specif ic things that you need in order to have a strong faith journey that wi l l keep growing and wil l provide depth in your transit ion from high school to col lege, a career, or the mil i tary.

Lastly, we wil l look at solut ions—some specif ic ideas and things that can help you learn more about having a stand-out faith journey in this world. This section might feel l ike a bunch of l ists and ideas to try, but I ’ve offered lots of suggestions because not everything wil l connect with everyone. But I ’m confident you wil l connect with at least one thing there (probably more), even i f some topics might not exactly f i t your needs r ight now.

Here we go!

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PArt 1PROBLEMS

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Part of me hates writ ing this section because i t ’ l l seem l ike an indictment or sad test imony of our weak faith. But I am convinced we must begin with some stark reminders about some of the struggles we have with our faith. Many of us struggle to make Jesus a priori ty in our l ives, and the habits you form now wi l l continue with you beyond high school.

My goal isn’t to beat you up. In fact, I hope that much of this f i rst section doesn’t describe you at al l . I hope you already have things f igured out and you are walking with Jesus in a deep and signif icant way. I f that’s the case, I st i l l think you wil l benefi t from reading this section because each chapter points out a pit fal l that you could easi ly fal l into during your faith journey. Use them as reminders of how to avoid gett ing caught up in trying to “f i t in.”

I t ’s possible that you are l ike me and have gone through stages in your faith where some of these things in these chapters have been true. You’ve held things in and not al lowed people to know your real feel ings. You’ve focused too much on everything else you are doing and too l i t t le on your faith. View these topics as teaching t imes to help you avoid fal l ing into the same traps again.

P r o B l e m s

3A r e yo u a r e d c u p c h r i s t i a n ?

As you read through this section, I want to encourage you to al low the Holy Spir i t to speak to you. Maybe i t ’ l l happen during a story or ref lect ion t ime or even during the questions. I f you al low al l parts of this journey to sink in, I am confident that something wil l reach you.

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CHAPTER 1:Are You lIke A red cuP?A “SECRET” ABOUT RED CUPSI recently taught a class to a bunch of youth workers at a national convention. To star t out the class—and in an attempt to be funny—I showed a sl ide that explains the meaning for each l ine on a red Solo® cup. Each l ine, I told the group, reveals how much beer (12 ounces), wine (4 ounces), or l iquor (2 ounces) to put in the cup. Some people who had never seen this sl ide before had no clue that these measurements existed. As I shared the info, they just nodded l ike i t clearly made sense—because real ly, drinking alcohol is what those cups are for, r ight?

OK, t ime to come clean: The company doesn’t actual ly put the l ines on the cups for any reason. (I made sure my youth worker fr iends knew that, too.) Those l ines have been around for a long t ime, and i t ’s just a coincidence that they l ine up at exact ounce markers—at least, al l the research I ’ve done says that i t ’s a coincidence. But in many ways, i t doesn’t matter i f i t ’s true or not. These red cups have

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become an image that most people associate with par t ies and alcohol.

In the early days of social media, people seemed to have l i t t le concern about the types of pictures that they were wil l ing to post and share. Back then, as a youth pastor wanting to stay connected to students after they graduated from high school, I would often check out their pages and accounts. Many t imes their pictures were f i l led with red cups, and because I associate those cups with par tying, I couldn’t help but be sad at the choices students were making.

But here’s a crazy thing about those cups: A student could simply have f i l led theirs with some sor t of soft drink and stood around with everyone else. Yet they would st i l l be judged as i f they were drinking with everyone else because they had the same kind of cup.

WHAT’S HAPPENING ON THE INSIDE?We are often just l ike these red cups. We resemble everyone else on the outside, but no one real ly knows what’s going on inside. I l ived my faith l ike this for a long t ime. In high school I was a good youth group kid

A r e Yo u l I k e A r e d c u P ?

7A r e yo u a r e d c u p c h r i s t i a n ?

who never missed any of our group’s events or activi t ies. But on the inside I real ly wasn’t fol lowing Jesus as much as my youth pastor thought I was. I went to youth group because i t was my social scene and the place I felt most comfor table. But I was struggling to f igure out who I was and what I bel ieved. I went to al l the par t ies and sometimes made bad choices that I would regret later. On the outside I was l iving one way that I wanted people to see, but on the inside I was l iving total ly differently.

I want you to know that I real ize and appreciate how tough things can be for you—our culture tel ls us to l ive and act in cer tain ways, and you want to “f i t in” with the world (or at least with specif ic groups of people). I t can be real ly tough i f you don’t feel l ike you belong or aren’t a par t of something. I ’m not trying to tel l you that you need to go out and buy every f lavor of Christ ian T-shir t that exists or carry your Bible wherever you go. The goal here is to help you define what you are l iving for and f igure out ways of taking those desires from the inside to the outside.

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THINK ABOUTI wonder how many of us have done something that we real ly don’t want anyone else to know about. I ’m guessing we al l have stuff hidden deep down inside that we hope never gets out—all of us have things that we hide. But our faith isn’t something we need to hide. Many people respect fol lowing Jesus. We sometimes can get al l caught up in the negative images that people have of Christ ians. But I ’ve found that i f you simply say, “I real ly l ike Jesus and I ’m fol lowing him,” most people don’t respond negatively.

QUESTIONS1. How much of the “real you” do people see?2. What holds you back from sharing the “true

you” with others? When are you most l ikely to do this, and why?

3. How do you know if Jesus is truly important to your l i fe r ight now? What might other people observe?

4. How well do you think your faith wil l transit ion to l i fe after high school? Why?

A r e Yo u l I k e A r e d c u P ?

Printed in the U.S.A.

ISBN 978-0-7644-9006-4

Religion/Christian Ministry/Youth

Picture the scene: You’re standing on a corner in a college town and see hundreds of students holding red cups. Like those red cups, the people blend in and all look the same. everyone seems the same on the outside, and you’re unable to see anything on the inside.

In many ways, this scene represents the challenges you face as you move from high school into young adulthood. You may be going from a relatively sheltered environment to one of full freedom, and that transition can be difficult. Will you conform to the culture around you, or will you pursue a stand-out faith in this fit-in world?

Veteran youth worker Lars rood is convinced that you can chart a course that will make your faith an essential part of your life. As you prepare for life after high school, you don’t have to be a red-cup Christian: someone who blends in and looks the same as the culture around you.

Drawing on the experiences of his own faith journey, Lars will guide you on the adventure of standing out instead of blending in, of fully embracing your faith and living it out.

LARS ROOD has been involved in youth ministry for 20+ years, and it has been an amazing ride. A featured writer/speaker, he loves to be with students and families, and enjoys teaching youth workers and seminary students. Lars and his family live in Washington state, where he is an associate pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue. You can follow his life at larsrood.com, twitter. com/larsrood, facebook.com/larsrood.