JESUS YOUTH | KAIROS GLOBAL | OCTOBER 2021

Author: Dr Edward Edezhath

Jesus Youth - Dreaming and Striving for a World Renewed

Eagerness to welcome God's Kingdom – foundation of JY life and mission

Wednesday gatherings after our 6pm prayer meeting used to be quite fascinating. For about 30 minutes everyone would interact and fellowship freely with each other. By that time others would trickle in for other discussions and meetings. Over time these 6.30pm gatherings became fertile settings where various socially relevant plans and projects evolved like, ‘City Alive’, ‘Colony outreach’, ‘Peace on Earth’ and ‘Grace Land’. All ideas that became reality from the Jesus Youth desire to get involved in the wider society.

I remember once Babu, James, Rupesh, Dominic, Shaji and a host of other JYs began the 6.30 session with prayer and proceeded with their dreams about the city. One would share how their cell group gathered at the public park, sitting and chatting, while others would gather leading to a time of connecting to lonely youth. Another would talk of relating to beggars; another on where bundles of illicit drugs reach the city; someone talks of connecting to youth clubs in nearby villages. Casual chats with the tourists in the city and building friendships with them, was the point in another sharing. Experiences, insights and plans would get exchanged, week after week and projects would take shape. And an oft-repeated refrain would be ‘Jesus has an exciting plan for our large city’. 

MAD for the Lord

A website on youth action screams, ‘We want you to GO MAD. Yes, Go and Make a Difference’. When I read this, I remembered one of my favourite songs of yesteryears, O Lord all the world belongs to you, and every stanza ending, ‘Is what’s turning the world upside down’. I am sure you get its reference from Acts, describing Christians as men who have turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). 

Young people often see the world around in need of a lot of change. When they see discrimination, poverty and injustice, they yearn for a better world. At times they vent it out in furious arguments or find refuge in groups that oppose it. A great disappointment to them is a Church they perceive to be not bothered about these pressing problems. 

Pope Francis highlights the danger of youth turning away from the problems around, ‘At times, seeing a world so full of violence and selfishness, young people can be tempted to withdraw into small groups, shunning the challenges and issues posed by life in society and in the larger world. They may feel they are experiencing fraternity and love, but their small group may in fact become nothing other than an extension of their own ego.’ The Pope then mentions a greater problem. ‘This is even more serious if they think of the lay vocation simply as a form of service inside the Church: serving as lectors, acolytes, catechists and so forth’ (Christus Vivit, 168).

Thank God, today at least some people take a different route, ‘For me coming to Jesus Youth was a dimension shift about Jesus and Christianity. The big change was from piety and prayer alone to my dream of finding ways to build a better world. And here I met so many who shared my dream.’ This was a young student, Antony, responding to what he found beautiful in Jesus Youth. 

Thy Kingdom come!

During the last few months a few senior Jesus Youth, many of them active professionals, have been coming together for discussions on socio-political issues. Their questions were, ‘how can we keep silent in the face of growing darkness around? Is it enough that we pray very well and be content with pious Church life?’ If earlier it was our 6.30pm meetings, now I see meetings over social media. From different parts of the world these active professionals gather and discuss their questions and dreams. And that doesn’t stop there, it leads to local involvement and action.

Jesus came into the world to announce a new Kingdom. From then on, every generation of Christians have been looking around, wishing and praying that the message of Christ would change the world around. Over the centuries that tiny seed that Jesus sowed has sprouted and grown. In the same way these Jesus Youth discussions have borne fruit in many ways: tribal youth gatherings, child support programmes, family meets, migrant care programmes, labour camp missions, dress collection initiatives, natural calamity interventions, Farm-at-home projects; through a host of social interventions they have made a big difference in the world around. In recent political elections, Jesus Youth members have taken a positive interest, resulting in more than a dozen JY candidates contesting the last local body elections, under various political banners.

The recent Popes have been urging lay people, especially youngsters, to have a balanced spirituality with enough attention on their mission in the wider social realm. ‘(Youth) forget that the lay vocation is directed above all to charity within the family and to social and political charity. It is a concrete and faith-based commitment to the building of a new society. It involves living in the midst of society and the world in order to bring the Gospel everywhere, to work for the growth of peace, harmony, justice, human rights and mercy, and thus for the extension of God’s kingdom in this world’ (CV, 168).

In the Jesus Youth movement there are enough signs of hope. Many are eager to seek the will of the Lord for the present-day and dream of change. Thankfully, some Jesus Youth fellowships go beyond being ‘prayer clubs’ and ask where the Lord would lead us. And these Kingdom initiatives are bearing rich harvest, sixty and hundred-fold.