Jesus: Captain of the Cheer Squad

I'll admit that I am little embarrassed. There are parts of my Friday night I'd rather not share with my classmates on Monday morning. It's not the part about running around down town in the dark. And I don't care too much about the whole asking strangers on the street to play leap frog or dance the polka with me. The part that I would rather leave out is about my cheer costume. No, this isn't the story of drunken college night. It is rather a questioning of if Jesus could fit into my red cheer skirt and top, adorned with the gold "Lobos" emblem and carry mismatched orange and green pom-poms.

The scene I described was last Friday night, when over fifty junior high students raced around in downtown Fort Collins on a mad Polaroid scavenger hunt. They finished their night on the parking garage floor, where many of them heard about Jesus Christ for the very first time. It was club night for Young Life's ministry for junior high students, called WyldLife. I have been involved in this ministry for four years, reaching unchurched teenagers where they're at and sharing the gospel with them through our relationships. Through WyldLife I've taken on many roles: custodian as I wipe down tables after their lunch hour at school; coach as I blow my whistle to conclude another basketball practice; tutor as I read with a small group in English class during seventh hour; chaperone at the dance, speaker at our bi-weekly club, pizza delivery girl for our small group, get-away driver for a late night "get those boys back" rampage, listening ear, friend, and pastor. But my favorite part will always be the cheerleader. The costume, the cheers, the dance moves, they're all made up with the hope that they will give just one teenager a bigger picture of God.

That is what God has called me to do. He calls on me to place these people, these teenagers, with what might make them laugh, what might make them question if there could be something different about these people who call themselves Christians, at the center of this ministry. It isn't about the program--what activity we offer, what songs we sing, who the speaker is, or what games we play. Our God is a God of human beings that are not called to "do ministry" but rather to "be Jesus" with skin on for the world. Because ultimately, who I am with youth, not what I do with them, is what they will remember thirty years from now. They will forget who won the scavenger hunt. They will forget which friends were there that night. Frankly, they will forget what the speaker had to say about Jesus Christ. But if there is some chance that they remember the leader of their team dressed in a cheer costume, the same leader who took them out to dinner on Tuesday nights, and the same leader who prayed with them to accept Christ a year later, than there is something to be said about "being" with these kids, in relationships, in which we share our lives. Paul talks about it in 1 Thessalonians 2:8: "We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us." The idea of sharing Christ with the world is just this, that it is more than the gospel, that it who we are, our lives, and maybe even our pom-poms.

Cassie Poncelow is in her second year as a HELM Leadership Fellow and is a member of Heart of the Rockies Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Fort Collins, Colorado.