This realization has been slowly coming into focus over the past year, finally solidifying from the haze and mist that has been haunting my mental vision on the university campus where I work. It should be no surprise that one mark of this generation (sometimes known as GenY) is a renewed sense of passion. Among the Christian students with whom I work, discovering the issues about which one is passionate appears to be a mark of collegiate experience as passing English 101 and proudly donning University apparel. Declaring personal passions does not just appear to be a “fad” of nomenclature, such as the use of “hip,” “rad,” “cool” or other such terms. Neither does it seem to be an over-exaggerated statement like the phrases, "I just love it!" or “that changed my life!” The collegians with whom I work seem to maintain their passions for years, most lasting long after graduation, even through marriage, kids and careers.
Perhaps the advent of the term has been driven by the vast popularity of The Purpose Driven Life or the Passion Conferences (and the 286 movement it spawned). In The Purpose Driven Life, Warren suggests that each person should discover their SHAPE (Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences) for ministry. In his view everyone is uniquely gifted and created for a purpose. Discovering and following one’s purpose - or one’s passion, as it has been interpreted by emerging adults (ages 18-30) - is key to fulfilment in life. Several years ago Louie Giglio initiated an annual Christian conference for young adults titled “Passion.” Since it’s inception the worship and teaching oriented event has grown to more than 40,000 attendees for the annual four day event each January in Atlanta, Georgia. Each year the event planners choose one issue of social justice as a central focus. For the 2012 conference the issue was human trafficking. The young adults that attended the event managed to donate and raise over 1 million dollars to fight the human sex trade - not an insignificant amount of money! Since then there have been a growing number of collegians who suddenly have developed a passion for this cause. But as the students came back to school literally glowing about the event and the amount of money raised, my thought was "what now?"
For many one aspect of realizing or discovering a passion is to declare it to the world. Many young adults do so through the use of social networking - by clicking the “like” button on Facebook, selecting the “+1” button on Google+, by following and re-tweeting quotes from their heroes on Twitter, or by “checking-in” at conferences they attend. Afterward they boldly wear the t-shirts, shoes, bracelets, hoodies, hats, or even shoes they bring home. These items are not so much souvenirs but are artifacts to illustrate and proclaim their new-found or increased like-passion. They are willing to voice their message on Facebook, to forward emails or websites to friends and family members, to wear the clothing, to attend the conference or lecture, to wear the clothing....
But, I have also noticed, most often this is where the passion remains. It is a passion of “like.”
It is a passion of the mind and heart and Internet; It is not usually a passion that moves to compassion.
It does not usually move to action. It does not result in transformation. It is solely an impotent acknowledgement of a cause, a problem, a situation - it is a passion of “like.”
And such like-passion does not result in change for the one who is passionate or for the one who is suffering.
While knowledge can lead to action which can result in change, solely acknowledging or knowing about a cause does not create the needed change.
On our campus we have collegians who are passionate about international missions, who will spend thousands of dollars to travel to the other side of the world for a week or two during a summer break, yet who will not walk across the classroom at school to befriend an international student from that same country.
On our campus we have collegians who are passionate about evangelism, who read books and blogs, listen to sermons, and constantly talk about the need for Christians to witness about their faith, yet who will not share their faith with their peers, even in very comfortable settings, such as handing out free coffee on campus and offering to pray with passers by.
On our campus we have collegians who are passionate about Child Sex Trafficking that is often born of the poverty that plagues inner-cities, yet who will not work locally to learn about and to eliminate poverty in the community adjacent to their campus.
Instead of possessing a like-passion, as Christians we are called to com-passion - a passion that makes one willing to get messy, to get dirty, to endure pain and suffering on behalf of others, or as my late seminary professor John Johnson said, we need a compassion like that of the Samaritan in Jesus’ story who was willing to get down in the ditch to help the injured, beaten, and dying man get out.
Granted, many young adults get it. We have a student who picks up two teenage girls from the nearby community each week and brings them to our worship services. When one of them got pregnant this brave collegian went with the girl to the doctors visits and was in the delivery room to welcome the little boy into the world. She continues to offer her support, mentoring, and unconditional love as the girls grow into womanhood.
We have another student who spends much of his free time downtown, visiting his friends (who happen to be homeless), talking with them about life, and faith, and sharing his food with them. He also takes others to meet them, to hang out, to talk about life, and faith, and to share a meal with them.
We have students who volunteer as mentors in the community, working with their assigned mentees as tutors and life-coaches, demonstrating that education is important and that there is life outside of the limited dead end worldview offered by the generational poverty in which they live.
Passion is needed in Christianity. Passion can be a force to bring about needed change. However, we don’t need a generation of folks who possess a like-passion, we need a generation of folks who have ditch-diving compassion!
Let’s do something.
Let’s push back against the like-passion with encouragement to do something with all of that pent up energy.
Let’s begin to ask the necessary (sometimes annoying) questions when scanning social media “likes.”
Let’s offer options and ideas for action instead of just pressing “like”
or attending a conference
or forwarding a sermon link
or even dropping a check in the mail or into the offering plate.
Let’s raise of a generation of compassionate, ditch-diving Christians who have dirt on our hands and faces, but possess the satisfaction of personally making a difference in someone’s life.
