Excerpt from 268 Blog, Summer Madness, June 12, 2007
"Grace was getting clearer as our sin and God's wrath closed in. I'm not sure when or where, but somewhere along the way in the recent journey of youth ministry and the American church in general, the reality of the coming wrath of God slipped out of our thinking about the cross of Christ. About that same time we lost our sense of desperate need, opting instead for a rosier view of ourselves than God's holiness will allow and embracing the cross as a really wonderful gesture, not life and breath and peace and everything. But in this night both the mercy and judgment of God hung in equal measure, the one making much of the other as we lifted the Cup and considered it's mandate for and from our lives.
As the talk ended, across the room many teens stood on chairs, others with feet on the floor and a few were kneeling. All this with no clever tales, just the simple reality that we are guilty without a Savior, having broken every law of a patient, yet righteous God. Many came that night to heed Jesus' invitation to take the Cup and drink from it, to savor its Inescapable Necessity, Radical Mercy, Gruesome Death, God-Sized Exchange and Radical Worship.
What was supposed to be a closing song erupted into almost an hour of thanks and praise. For how could a brief reply express our wonder and gratitude for mercy that would shelter us on the coming day of judgment?"
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