Zombies!!

College is basically a killing field, where many young Christians willingly go to die. The Barna Group, an evangelical polling & statistics group, says that 80% of young Christians today will walk away from their faith. Eighty percent!!

I was one of those "Christian" youth group kids who "abandoned ship" back in the mid-seventies. Things started out alright when I got to college but things slowly deteriorated spiritually and, eventually, I left the church. It became unimportant. Too many other FUN things to do.

My first year at college, I came home on weekends to play guitar in the worship band for our youth group. Looking back, I'd have to say that I REALLY came home to play guitar with my friends, not to worship God. Sadly, I never really "got it" when I was in high school.

That same apathetic pattern continued throughout most of my life. No one really cared enough to talk with me about my faith, or lack of it. My wife kept asking me to go to church with her but that seldom worked - only when I felt "guilty." I was lost, spiritually, and no one cared. And that was just fine with me.

There were lots of us "lost" types out there, especially back in college. Dorm parties, Wapatuli parties, pantie raids . . . I remember walking into the bathroom one day and there was a guy AND a girl showering together. There were thousands of us on that campus, most of us were terribly, horribly lost. Like a bunch of Zombies!

During my freshman year I went to see a movie - Night of the Living Dead. It was about, yes, you guessed it, Zombies. I learned quite a few life changing lessons in that movie.

1. Zombies are always dirty. It's probably because they just climbed out of some grave some place, but 'Zombie hygeine' is an oxymoron.
2. Zombies always walk slowly. That's probably because the were dead not that long ago and they were a little stiff. Rigor mortise you know. Totally understandable.
3. Zombies crave human flesh. I don't know where that desire came from but it became very apparent in that movie. They couldn't find food at the grocery store? Nope, apparently it was human flesh or nothing.
4. Zombies can only be killed by a shot to the head. Anywhere else on their body and they just keep on a comin'!

You know, now that I think about it, and based on those zombie characteristics, I went to school with a LOT of zombies. Many of my dorm mates sure fit the description above - usually after a frat party. They were dirty, they walked slowly, if they could walk at all, and they craved human flesh . . . but in a different way, if you know what I mean. And the shots to the head? Think about it. College parties are filled with shots to the head. Jello shots, shots of whiskey . . . (sigh)

Where did we go wrong? What turns nice, church-going young adults into wishy-washy "Christians" who only pull God out to hopefully extinguish some personal "fire" in our lives. We walk away because we are lazy and too self-absorbed to want to change.

Things took a turn for the worse shortly after the serpent asked Eve, "Did God really say . . . " (Gen 3:1)

My friends, there are millions of zombies out there! They are literally the walking dead. They're everywhere on this planet. "Open your eyes and look at the fields!" (John 4:35). They're in our schools. They sit right next to us at work. There may be one sleeping next to you at night. Scary? It should be! But the scariest thought is that WE are also Zombies. The only thing that saved us is a shot, not to the head, but to the heart. An infusion of blood - the blood of Christ. Without his blood we might as well just crawl right back into the grave from whence we came. With the blood of Jesus Christ, we would be totally, eternally dead.

What if we switched around the entire zombie scenario. What if WE, the children of God, actively began seeking out the lost, the zombies of this world. We need to become a different kind of zombie, "possessed" by our desire to serve Jesus. What if we were obsessively driven, slow to move yet extremely determined. What if we craved to deliver, to ALL the Zombies of the world, the message of the Gospel. Our mighty invincible weapon would be God's Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and the power of HIS blood - sacrificed, once and for all, so that we might live, and NEVER die. Think about that. That is what we are called to do!!

"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." - Ephesians 2:1-10