A 10th grader named Robby came to me one night at summer camp.
“Hey Trevor. You got a minute? I need to talk with you.”
Robby was a lifelong church member. His dad was a deacon, his mom sang in the choir, and he attended every Wednesday night. But he’d been going through the motions.
He didn’t really care about God; he was far more concerned with girls. When it came down to it, he would rather be cool than Christian. That wasn’t obvious to his parents, but it was obvious to me.
“Sure. What’s up?”
He wanted to have the rededication conversation.
The Rededication Conversation
Students from all over are making their way to Christian camps this summer. When they aren’t having shaving cream fights, pulling pranks, or eating mystery meatloaf, they’ll probably find themselves singing, praying, and listening for what God wants to do in their lives.
And it’s likely that most of the students will walk away feeling like they encountered God – some for the first time, others for the first time in a long time.
Inevitably, a student will want to rededicate his/her life to Christ.
That’s what Robby wanted to do.
That’s when you have the rededication conversation.
What should you say?
Honestly, I’ve always found the rededication conversation to be a bit awkward.
The conversion conversation is easy. When a student expresses faith for the first time, they receive the fanfare of their family, their pastors, and their peers at church. They get baptized and everyone claps. It’s exciting for everyone involved.
Don’t get me wrong, rededication is exciting too. The student recognizes that he/she hasn’t been faithful to a prior commitment made to Christ, and now they want to start fresh.
But the excitement is tempered by the fact that there has already been a commitment made to Christ that was left to the side for some length of time.
The obvious question is: What will be different this time?
Here’s what I tell that student…
There are no fireworks for rededication.
There is no baptism for rededication.
There are no cards that come in the mail from your grandparents telling you how happy they are that you decided to rededicate your life to Christ.
Rededication is just a commitment to live by a commitment you’ve already made: to fix your eyes on Jesus so that for each situation you’re in, for each conversation you have, for each action you take, you make a conscious choice to honor Jesus rather than dishonor him.
It happens one situation, one conversation, one action, one day at a time.
Rededication is about repentance:
Turning from your way to God’s way…day by day until God’s way becomes your way.
If that happens, this time will be different.
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