The Empty Chair:

I know we’ve all heard the analogies in youth groups and camps and from special speakers involving chairs, but my thoughts and insights tonight had nothing to do with any of them that I’ve heard before.

As some of you know, I am a pastor. Not just a pastor, but a youth pastor... and brand to it at that. There are several things about it that, I must admit, scare me to death. It is a crazy responsibility that I have ahead of me.

At the church I am at, there is no established meeting. It has been my task to try to formulate a beginning of the next era of ministry in this church. There are a lot of big questions that has circled around this... most of which, I have asked God about in conjunction with that words: Please don’t let me screw this up.

My plan has been now great best-selling book, church fad plan. It has simply been this: pray. I know that anything out of Christ is this thing would merely make it “The Damien Show” - which is the LAST thing I want!

So tonight was my first official event and a youth ministry: prayer. Not just prayer, but church wide prayer. I had invited the congregation to join me in prayer for the future of the youth ministry. Unfortunately, the only ones who showed up were two of the pastor’s sons... however, I did not realize what I would see tonight.

As I set up the youth room, setting different themes of prayer in different, strategic place, I saw a lone chair sitting in the center of the room, faced toward the room - back turned toward the platform.

This chair represented to me all of the teens which would come through the doors. As we prayed for the teens that would come to this youth group, I saw vividly in the chair a punk kid with his metal wallet chains, spiky hair, tattoos, and piercings. I saw the disdain for society, the anger of rejection and desire for acceptance as he was... no strings attached, no disclaimers, just love.

His likeness changed to that of a hardened, arms folded skeptic. His posture and the jeer on his face gave a challenge to be proven wrong.... a challenge to know Christ in reality, not just ideals. He didn’t want to be fed feel-good stories, he wanted the cold, hard facts.

Just as the figure had changed before, it changed one more time to a girl: she seemed to have to world on a platter. She had friends, toys, boys, looks, grades, and shades... she was everyone’s American baby, but I say the enamel smile fade to panic. “What if they saw who I REALLY am?” she thought - “What if they knew about the years of eating disorders which masked my need for control which I MUST have to hide from years of being out of control of the sexual abuse? Who could ever love me? I’m beyond hope.”

I saw them all and they broke my heart. These are the young guys and girls whom that chair represented tonight. I cried for them, but I rejoiced in my tears because I know that the same Jesus who called tax-collectors, fishermen, sinners, and prostitutes to “come and see...follow... and go out and do” also calls the punks, the skeptics, the used, and the unlovable to do the same.

Tonight, I caught a glimpse of what God is up to. I don’t know if I would call it a vision or a teaching moment, but whatever the case is. There is a reality of what happens when, in the words of David Crowder, our depravity and His divinity collide: lives transformed but the undeniable work of Jesus Christ.

It should not be surprising He would use something a simple as an empty chair.