A couple of months ago, I saw an advertisement for a service geared toward trying to help youth leaders to influence teenagers to listen to more Christian music. The reasoning behind this (as far as I can tell) is that they're going to be influenced by several hours of music each day, so why not make sure it's Christian music?
On the surface, it's pretty decent reasoning. But when I thought about it for a while, I was a bit disturbed. Here's why: we as youth workers often set up requirements for following Jesus that don't really have much to do with Jesus. Rather than encouraging students to follow Jesus, we end up encouraging them to follow stuff. Please note that I'm not knocking Christian music (at least in this post); I'm simply knocking the thinking that says, "You follow Jesus by replacing your music (or movies, or TV shows, or other time consumer) with Christian music, (or Christian movies, or Christian TV). And so we give 'em stuff, and not Jesus.
I know, the line's pretty thin sometimes between giving students Jesus and giving them stuff. But if we equate following Jesus to doing this, listening to that, thinking this, dressing a certain way, or being at a certain place at a certain time, we equate following Jesus to actions, rather than stressing an actual relationship with Jesus. And that's legalism, wrapped in Christian marketing.
Give 'em Jesus, not stuff.
