“It’s better to look good than to feel good, dahling.”
Major Mark Johnson used this quote, made famous by Billy Crystal in the 1980s, in a sermon for more than 250 people gathered at a Salvation Army retreat last weekend.
“Who knows who Billy Crystal is?” he asked. Three hands went up.
Given that the crowd was in high school and college, and Crystal turns 60 next month, that’s not surprising.
Crystal’s satiric routine criticized superficiality, and Johnson’s preaching had the same intent. “It’s easy to look at somebody and assume things about them,” he said. “But we really don’t know what’s going on in others’ lives, so we have to be careful about how we judge.”
What really matters, he said, was what God saw, emphasizing a major theme of the event, the first multi-state retreat put on by the Metro Youth Network of the Salvation Army. For two days, young people from Illinois and three neighboring states played, ate, and prayed together at Camp Wonderland, 145 acres of woodland and meadow in Camp Lake, Wisc.
Johnson said that while he wouldn’t necessarily use the word “resurgence,” he has definitely seen an increase in the participation of youth in the Salvation Army over the years. “There’s a great interest in spiritual things and ministry in young people today,” he said. “The young people I’m in contact with today, they want to minister, they want to use their faith, they want to walk with God.”
The winter retreat was a fun time that included sledding, snowball fights and pizza, and the youth were obviously excited to be there. At Friday’s prayer and praise event, kids were clapping and dancing to the rock band that played songs with lyrics such as, “We shall not lose the fight of faith/For Jesus is our Lord/We lay all carnal weapons down/To take his shining sword.”
The youth ranged in ages, but were mostly between 13 and 22, and were diverse in geography, race and background. In addition to youth who were firm believers in the Salvation Army, 30 young people who only attended camp during the summers were invited to help bring them into the flock.
“I really enjoy people from different churches coming together. I love seeing people who may not come from the same church, may not even be friends or have the same background, but come together and talk,” said Lindsey Bailey, 22, a student at Olivet Nazarene University who grew up in Chile with parents who are missionaries for the Salvation Army.
The service opened Friday with a call to global awareness and social justice, where Bailey encouraged participants to take a piece of straw and put it in their Bibles to remember to pray for the tragedy in Darfur, Sudan. Participants were also encouraged to commit to a “blessings tax,” in which kids donate money for a month, taking into account the blessings in their lives and children around the world who are in great need.
“[The Salvation Army] is a place where I can confide in people who really care about me, and it’s a place where they believe in equality and I’m all for that,” said D’Andre Coats, 16, of the Inglewood Corps, who has been a member of the Salvation Army for two years and is trying to convert his parents to the faith.
While the word “Testify!” shone on a big screen, youth then talked about the influence of God in their lives. One teenager, who was born in Mexico and has been an illegal immigrant in the United States for six years, said he was worried about getting into college and excited because he was recently accepted by the Moody Bible Institute.
Another teenager said she had been dealing with alcoholism and the Salvation Army has helped her through it. “The doctor wanted me to go to rehab, but I felt I was strong-minded, and God gave me the strength to do it on my own,” she said. Other youth talked about how they had been in and out of jail, were fighting an addiction to buying purses, or how giving up soda pop had allowed them to join a Christian sports team, bringing God to peers.
In the ministry, Johnson warned against the mentality of “I want to do what I want when I want to do it,” emphasizing repentance for past misdeeds as Bible passages flashed on the screen behind him. One passage, Proverbs 17:9-10, says, “More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it? I, the LORD, alone probe the mind and test the heart, to reward everyone according to his ways, according to the merit of his deeds.”
He cautioned participants against choosing their desires over the Lord’s. “What would change in your communities, and all of Chicagoland, if you were to go home and say, ‘We’re not rebellious anymore?’ ” Johnson said.
To end the service, the rock band played songs from the Salvation Army Song Book, while participants sang along and prayed. “If you can’t say it with all your heart, there’s plenty of space to come up here and pray,” Johnson said. Minutes later, the stairs in front of the stage were full of youth praying, hugging, and crying.
Cathleen Himes, 24, of Oak Park, said she loves the communal prayer of the retreats. “I’ve come to retreats before, being exhausted from school, and I’ve been hurting, and maybe not even known it. Then I come and there’s someone to talk to me, pray with me, egg me on. I mean, that’s huge,” she said.
The drummer in the band, Jonathan Taube, 20, of Hammond, Ind., also said he loves the retreats. “I look around and see people who are passionate, and they’re saying that this world is not the way it’s meant to be, and believe another world is possible. It starts with each individual,” he said. He then referenced a Leo Tolstoy quote, “Everyone wants to change the world, but no one wants to change themselves.”
Taube said that the youth at the retreat were different. “I look around this room tonight, and I see a lot of kids who really want to change themselves.”
Youth Department