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I have had this incredible itch lately to read. Like many of you I have about six books going at one time and if I am honest part of me thinks it’s pretty cool to have six books going on at one time. So when people ask me what I have been reading lately I now have a long list so as to WOW them with my reading prowess (for those hoping to be “cool” in the Christian circles make sure one of the books is by a dead, obscure author so you can kind of let out that snide, little laugh and then again WOW them with the depth of your reading knowledge…everybody knows dead authors are so much cooler than living ones!!)The cool factor…everybody is aware of it…some more than others. Last month I went to a conference full of primarily pretty, white, suburban Christians who all looked alike and who I felt like understood what it meant to be cool. They had cool hair, cool clothes, cool shoes, cool glasses, seemingly they were cool enough to connect with the culture that I so desperately try to keep up with so as to stay relevant with this culture defining generation I live among.

One of the 6 books I have been reading (for all you good Christians I know I should be reading 7 books as that is the number of perfection…respond with a good book and I will add it to my list!!) has been painting a picture of a life lived with simplistic devotion to a single, primary call in life. From this primary call everything else is birthed. The call is simple yet the implications of saying yes are life altering. The call is this “To love and follow Jesus everywhere he goes.” Sounds simple right? Mother Teresa said it another way, “Do not worry about your career. Concern yourself with your vocation, and that is to be lovers of Jesus.” In the book when the author is asked what he does he responds by saying he is a “vocational lover.” I like that…but is it cool?

I think it is cool to call myself a vocational lover of Jesus but I am not sure that it makes me cool in the eyes of everyone else around me. Why is this not cool? Think about it. What does it mean to love Jesus and follow him? It means obedience to him, it means pursuing his kingdom coming to earth in all areas of life not just salvation of the soul, it means being aware and active in bringing justice in areas of human suffering all over the world, it means having a prayer life like Elijah who prayed that it wouldn’t rain and it didn’t (I love it that James reminds us that Elijah was a man just like us…we have authority in prayer that we never tap into) and believing Jesus when he said we can do the same things that he has been doing and even greater things. Answering the call means that I follow Jesus even when it is uncomfortable and costs me my reputation and status in the eyes of the world.

Loving Jesus and following him is not cool. But how far does coolness really take us? How much of the world is changed because someone is cool enough to connect with a specific group of people in the way they look or talk. The lives of our young adults will not be changed because we are up to date on culture….our students lives will be changed as we humbly bow at the feet of Jesus and say as Ruth said, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.” This is not cool…it is radical, and as much as Christians love using the word radical today, (it is cool to talk about being radical in case you were wondering) living it out is a different story.

All of us have a call and that call is to one thing….to become vocational lovers of Jesus. It may sound cool, but living it out may lead us to do, say or model things that are very un-cool. In fact the first thing we will probably have to do is die to the urge in us to be cool or relevant. So with all of this said let me invite you to my new club for recovering cool addicts where we focus on one thing…becoming vocational lovers of Jesus. In our meetings we will talk about the freedom found in Jesus, the un-earnable nature of grace, the un-packageability of the gospel and the power found in a true love relationship with Jesus that will catapult you to a knew level of effectiveness in your secondary call of ministry to young adults. Are you ready? I know the people around us are ready. Let me leave you with these words from a dead author “I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.”

Steve Hambrick
Steve is the Executive Director of the University of Central Florida Wesley Foundation

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