Young Adults

Connections Young Adult Meeting
Wednesdays at 7:30 pm • MZCF Main Auditorium
• Special Weekly Meeting for Young Adults
• For all Graduating Seniors through 20 Somethings....
• Contact Jon McConnell for more info...

Young Adults!!! Please read....

Many Christian testimonies start out with the phrase, “I grew up in church, but…”

A lot of times it seems that when the extreme need for a concrete spirituality arises - at the exact moment we realize that we are smaller than the world - the God and Jesus we heard about in stories as we grew up dissipates, and we are suddenly left cold, dry, and alone.

It is at this time, that our “learned” behavior must be replaced with our “owned” behavior.

No longer being satisfied with other’s explanations of God, we slip into the warm reality of knowing who He is for ourselves. As we journey with our Father, He redeems our misconceptions and misunderstandings, and brings closure and fact to the legends we have always heard.

This can happen at any moment in one’s life. It, as it does for many, happened to me in my twenties.

The Young Adult Connections Fellowship at MZCF looks to support “post high school to late twenties adults” through this transition. We connect with God through prayer, worship, discussion, fellowship and interaction - and connect with each other through the same.

God doesn’t want mindless servants. He wants friends who will interact with Him. He does not get defensive when we ask Him questions, because He is secure in His identity, and wants us to be secure in ours as well. When Jacob “wrestled” with God in Genesis 32, he received a blessing – the new name of “Israel”. The fact that this name means, “struggles with God”, is a good thing. God likes it when we wrestle with Him, and prevail as Jacob did, with a greater understanding of who He is.

Our Father wants us all to learn to live under His grace, and rest secure in HIS identity. He wants us to understand that He is ever-present and ever loving. He wants us to learn how to surrender to His unfailing grace. We don’t have to cut ourselves to get His attention – we already have it.

The following is an excerpt from Donald Miller’s “Through Painted Deserts” and sums much of this up….

“…but this new pursuit of God will be different from ones past. I am approaching from a new side: the rear. I was raised in a family that attended church on Sunday. It has become such a part of my life that I am no longer certain if it is real: Do I possess a personal faith, or just my own learned behavior? I have passed through what modern Christianity has to offer and am standing at the other end, questioning, “Is this it?” Years of Sundays stack end to end on a calendar marked with church camps, youth group, mission trips, concerts, seminars, revivals, and retreats. All of them add up to the chasing of an elusive emotional fulfillment, one that slips in and out of my consciousness like a ghost. Still, and despite my weariness with this chase, I am looking for fulfillment in Christ. Something inside me keeps me in pursuit. There must be something more. Something authentic. I feel that I have only passed through the shadow of the Christian faith and eluded its consequence and substance.

I know enough about Christ to realize that He focused more on action than on persuasive words. He spent little time convincing and much time proclaiming. His willingness to take the cross captured my attention. Further investigation led me to believe His claims. He was, in fact, the Son of God. And this is where I find my dilemma. Having believed and experienced life change in the newness of my faith, I am left now, having passed considerable time since my rebirth, with a faith that feels as empty and arid as a cavern. I’ve memories of joy, but nothing to quench the present thirst.

Maybe my relationship with Christ is like any relationship. Time wears newness out and I am left with discipline and will. Occasional thoughts, poems, songs, or sermons revive the spirit, but they are few and far between. In short, I do not feel fulfilled by what I know or experience of God. The idea of Him, His word, His commands, His footprints on the planet no longer stimulate my mind. I am not, as the churchgoers might say, “walking with the Lord.” I’ve made efforts to revive this numbness by reading books, listening to tapes, and feeding on ideas about a soft Jesus healing the sick and riding off into the sunset, sharing the horizon with the Lone Ranger and Tonto. But He seems a Sunday school character, no more substantial than Daniel in the lion’s den or Noah in the ark. He fits snugly in the toy box between Big Bird and Humpty Dumpty. He is a cloth cutout on a felt board. A name in a song. A prayer on the lips of a politician.

Somewhere, however, beneath my childish, immature perception of God is His true identity. I consider this trip a stepping away from myself, from my comforts and from my weak understanding of God into an adult reality: A faith based on the facts of Scripture and the knuckle-grinding reality of a day-to-day existence. I need more than a bedtime story. I need more than a youth group God. I am looking for a Savior. A Guide. An existential answer to my questions about purpose and meaning. I want true fulfillment in my Christian faith. I am looking for joy.

Donald Miller “Through Painted Deserts”

Check out other book recommendations here.

For more info about the Young Adult Connection Ministry, please contact Jon McConnell.