Is Rob Bell Even Relevant?

I had to laugh after I cried.

My sons attend a local church on Wednesday Nights to hang out with their Christian friends from school. My youngest attends AWANA, and my two middle sons and our adopted son attends the youth group. This is all due to the kindness of a local pastor who has been very gracious to help us as we are launching our church in this community.

Recently, the youth pastor was involved in a car accident where he died. He was a great kid, loved the scripture, loved the Lord. Long story short, my boys are experiencing their 4th youth pastor in the two years since we have been here. This is where this story begins.

A young lady, a campus crusader, has taken the reins as the new youth leader at this local fellowship. She is one who I witnessed to at the campus because she had difficulty articulating how one gets saved, and how one is led to the Lord. Now I believe that she truly loves the Lord, this is not at issue, here. What is at issue is that she has been showing Nooma Videos in youth group recently. My son Eddie came home and complained about it last night. This is the sad part; she is showing Nooma Videos while my son (and others) hunger and thirst for the Word to be taught. This is what youth groups ought to be for, to build up these young people to be young men and ladies of God. Instead, we have pizza, popcorn, and Noomas. We are setting these kids up for failure when they leave for college.

I am not worried about my sons and ‘adopted’ sons, for they are taught at home. They are also taught on Sunday mornings by one of my elders. They apparently know the Word very well, for my son Eddie in his complaint made me very happy…and this is the laughter part. He said that Rob Bell was gay- which is his way of saying that he is stupid and makes no sense. I asked him what he means, and he explained that it seems that on these videos, Rob Bell talks a lot about nothing, that there is no organized thought, that it seems he tells stories and then tries to jam scriptures into the stories to make his point. Then, my son said, most of the time he does not even reference scripture, so it seems that he is changing what it says so he can make his point.

Now this morning, I inquired further, and one of my ‘adopted’ kids who is very young in the Lord piped in about the lack of sense and the lack of scripture and any cogent teaching. He says that the videos are well produced, but stupid, because they make absolutely no sense to him. They are boring.

This is what made me laugh. Rob Bell is trying to be relevant, trying to reach a new generation with this garbage he calls Noomas, and it is not even reaching its target audience. To these young Bible fed teens, this teaching is irrelevant when compared to the scripture!

Now you may be thinking that I have coached my kids, or that I am misquoting them. I assure you, this is not happening. I am telling you that they love the Word. I am telling you that they have studied it enough to know what it says. I am telling you that they recognize error. I am telling you that a 14 year old and a 15 year old and a 16 year old do know about exegesis and eisogesis and can recognize the difference~(thanks to a little product called Herman-who?).

Which makes me think further that his market, young or old, is not those who are saved and love the Word of God. His market is to the post-modern who believes that truth is relative only to his or her own experience. His market is for those who are too lazy to open up God’s Word and experience it for themselves. His market is for non believers and false converts who want a feel-good religious experience. What I am saying is that Noomas are not for the church, for those who believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

I am thankful that my kids recognize error. I am sad that there are many more who drink this poison in like water.