Christian buddying evangelism

Growing up, Jason Cha thought he was the best kind of Christian. Later on, he discovered he was also one of the worst.

“I didn’t know anything other than church,” the 24-year-old says. “It was hard for me to love people, in general. I was very judgmental, very hypocritical and thought I had it all together.”

Despite the devoutness of his belief, he credits his moment of “coming to faith” to a camp he attended that was run by Young Life, a nonprofit outreach founded in 1941 by a Texas minister whose goal was to teach adolescents to love Christ, regardless of their background or the staunchness of their faith. The group now spans the globe, with a self-described audience of more than 1.6 million young people and ministries in more than 90 countries.

The key to Young Life’s outreach is its corps of adult and college-age volunteers, who approach adolescent evangelism as an “in the trenches” affair. These representatives visit middle and high schools, where they seek to form friendships with students in order to earn their trust and “[win] the right to be heard.”

“I had a Young Life leader in high school who showed up and built a friendship with me,” Cha recalls. “Out of that grew a friendship, and out of that grew conversations about faith. He really taught me what it looks like to lead those around me and invite them into this faith.”

Young Life’s open-arms policy left an indelible impact on Cha. He began attending Young Life events at age 12, volunteered to reach out to grade school students while in college and now serves as a full time “staff associate” for the Chattanooga chapter of the international organization. The experience irrevocably altered his perception of Christianity.

“Young Life is for every kid,” he says. “It’s for the kid who has almost no faith at all and opposes anything to do with Christianity to people like me who were so deep into the religion that I couldn’t love people outside of it.”

The local chapter of Young Life has been active in Chattanooga since 1978, when it was founded by Len Teague, who now serves as the associate pastor of children and youth at Lookout Mountain Presbyterian.

David Haskins – Teague’s successor as metro-area director – was the Young Life leader whose friendship opened Cha’s eyes to a less-constricted view on faith. A 35-year veteran of the organization, Haskins says the nonprofit’s mission to forge honest connections with young people is a potent form of evangelism, especially at a time in teens’ lives when they tend to be in a confused tug-of-war between a desire for individuality and acceptance.

“Kids nowadays are overwhelmed by cultural pressures,” he says. “It’s like there’s this massive tsunami wave just coming on shore with all the stuff that culture brings with it. It’s not all bad, but it’s almost all overwhelming, and some of it is horrible.

“Kids are left with trying to figure out how to manage it and fit in. Here comes Young Life into the midst of that tsunami of culture, standing beside kids, saying, ‘Hey, you’re not alone. I’ll be your friend and help you make decisions that will benefit your life and not harm your life. You’ve already been accepted, you don’t have to prove yourself to me.'”

The school groups that fall under the umbrella of Young Life’s citywide chapter have long hosted weekly events, including “campaigners,” bible study groups, and a weekly “club” event that is a social night with an underlying, faith-based message.

Typically, the club events were limited to the members of each school’s respective micro-community, but recently, the citywide organization has begun hosting an all-call club gathering on Monday nights at The Camp House on East M.L. King Boulevard.

“At The Camp House, we see ourselves as a threshold, a common space in the community, so we love to see convergence happening here,” says Matt Busby, the venue’s general manager. “The idea of Young Life bringing together the majority of their entire club into one city club fits our vision of what we want to see happen in this city.”

For an hour preceding the event, Young Life transforms an adjacent parking lot into a pseudo-carnival with Frisbee games, corn hole, basketball, food trucks and a DJ. Cha says the first two meetings have attracted 400 to 500 students from around the city, but he hopes to eventually double that attendance by the end of the fall semester.

“Our hope is that it’ll become the place to be on a Monday night that feels safe and welcoming and where kids can be kids,” he says. “One of the coolest things we’ve witnessed is that it’s uniting high school kids across the board. It’s everyone from Howard kids to Baylor kids.

“Our hope is that – through our message of the gospel of Jesus – we can diminish those walls of class and culture and school and formulate a community of people who want to wrestle with and walk in their faith together.”

Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.