At Summit we admonish young Christians to abandon childish ignorance and embrace the responsibility of honorable citizenship. Among the biblical warrants for this is 2 Corinthians 5:19-20 which says, “…in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.”
This extraordinary teaching from the Apostle Paul revolves around three powerful words:
- “Reconcile” comes from the Greek word katallasso from which we get our word “catalyze,” to be an agent that changes things forever.
- “World” comes from the Greek word kosmos which means “the order of all things.”
- “Ambassador” is the Greek word prebeuos which means “elder,” someone who brings a mature perspective in the midst of confusion.
In other words, God, through Christ, is restoring everything to rights and trusting us to represent Him by bringing maturity to an immature culture. When others say hateful things and spew lies, we don’t take personal offense — we just keep speaking the truth — boldly and lovingly.
At Summit, the perspective we give to students about politics is very simple:
- Stop being ignorant. Understand the truth, and then learn to articulate it.
- Start being an ambassador of Christ in every aspect of culture — including politics.
- Don’t expect it to be easy. G.K. Chesterton said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”
Summit students embrace this message enthusiastically. Our recent study of 1,591 Summit graduates demonstrated that Summit inspires young adults to understand the Christian worldview, to understand other worldviews, to get a sense of direction in life, and to engage the culture. If you know of a young person who could benefit from this kind of experience, what would you be willing to do make sure they don’t miss out on it this summer? Visit our Student Conference page to find out more.