I am lit up like a school bus right now, because in just a few short weeks, the 4th installment of the Indiana Jones movie adventurefest will be seen by millions.  And rightly so.  It should be seen, by the entire planet.  What excites me the most is that an entire generation of rookies not raised on the original trilogy, innaugurated by “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” will have their chance to be introduced to the greatest action hero in history.  That’s right, I said it.  GREATEST ACTION HERO IN HISTORY.  Then, if they have not seen the original 3 movies, they will be compelled to.  Then, as a result, their lives will be changed, like mine was as a little boy watching this semi-awkward, every-man-turns-into-a-death-defying-damsel-rescuing-hero.

And this is something that plagues the church today.  We need some heroes.  NOT CELEBRITIES.  Got enough of those.  NOT SUCCESSFUL AUTHORS OR STARS.  Plenty of those to go around.  We need some honest to goodness women and men that are not flashy, funny, or fantastic to look up to, to model, and to admire.  And the Christian merchandise machine cannot give us these heroes.  The local church is the only supply chain where we can find these much needed examples of faith, simplicity, and character.

Our culture manufactures heroes because they want to sell us stuff.  In order to sell us stuff, huge companies create stars out of athletes, movies stars, or ordinary people.  Consider the phenomenon of American Idol.  Carrie Underwood was just a plain farm girl from Oklahoma who could sing until she “made it to Hollywood!”  Now, everytime I am in a tight spot or my kids are driving me nuts, I just whisper “Jesus, take the wheel” and I feel better.  Hollywood created that “hero” for us.  And I like Carrie.  But if there was no money to be made, none of us would have ever heard of her.  (But man, can she sing!)

The family of God right now in the 50 states we call America really could use some local, low key role models.  Heroes we can look up to.  Like Randy Satterfield.  He was a volunteer at my church growing up who took all the boys camping and fishing.  He was a man’s man who knew the outdoors, how to start a fire, and how to catch bass on a Carolina rig.  All the boys idolized Randy.  He died of cancer a few years ago, but he left such an impression on me that I named my black lab after him, and I still remember things he said and things he taught me.

I wonder if the church is still creating heroes for a younger generation?  Do we even have time to get to know people from a different generation?  One of my favorite and most life-shaping memories as a child was hearing the older men at my church tell stories about World War 2.  Most of those men are dead now, but I worshipped the ground they walked on.

Maybe it’s not so much that we don’t have as many heroes as we need, maybe it’s more about being too busy or pre-occupied with other things to get to know each other.  Our schedules are full, ball practice and papers and sermons to prepare, grass to cut and clothes to wash, you know the drill.  But if everything I am reading about the generation that has abandoned the church is true, they are all saying the same thing.  They want meaningful relationships with real people.  They want older women and men to care about them, invest time in their lives, teach them how to be married and how to raise kids. 

But I have learned this.  It takes 2 people to have a relationship.  So if my generation is going to whine about not having mentors and heroes and complain about how the older generation never invested in them or does not care about them, then just remember this.  Older people have more time on their hands, work less, sit around more, and struggle with loneliness and isolation more than any other age group.  So if you, like me, are young and busy, and need a hero, then look no further than the senior citizens in your church.  Ask them to lunch.  Go pick them up and take a walk in the park with them.  Take your kids to their house and watch their face light up in the presence of children.  And ASK QUESTIONS.  Let them talk to you, and write down what they say, record it, lean over in your seat and notice the emotion on their face when they talk about using an outhouse, bringing water from a spring in a bucket, or taking a bath on Saturday  nights in tin tub.

Why would we not want advice and life experience from those who already have it because they have already lived it?  So to my generation I say, there is no real hero shortage.  There is a time shortage and a will shortage.  If we have the will to say no to unnecessary things that clutter up our lives, then we can make the time to get close to some of these unknown heroes on our communities.  I would give a year off my life to have another day with my grandfather and hear him tell about the day they found out Hitler had committed suicide and the Germans had surrendered.  He was on a ship in the South Pacific, and he said that grown men fell on their faces and cried like babies because they knew they would be going home soon. 

And who knows?  They may have some stories that would make Indiana Jones look like Big Bird.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 6:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.