Life on the Trail - Authenticity

By far my favorite experience in youth ministry was the backpacking trips we took with Young Life. Each summer, I would take a group of 6 – 12 high school students on a hard-core backpacking trip in Colorado or Wyoming. It was physically challenging and not for the faint of heart, and typically, I would bring students who were mature for their age and maturing in their faith. I loved this trip and here’s why.

Authenticity.

Let’s define authenticity as a refusal to hide or pretend. It’s a commitment to be ME, warts and all.

The trail demanded authenticity. You may try to hide and pretend, but because of the physical demands, lack of sleep, limited food, and overall difficulties of living outside, authenticity happened. Plus authenticity encourages more authenticity. As one student was willing to express their authentic self it encouraged others to do the same.

Plus, no showers, no change of clothes, no deodorant, no bathrooms, no mattresses, led to all of us being dirty, smelly, tired, and outside of our comfort zones. We were all experiencing the same challenges. We could all relate to what each other was going through. It was good, very good.

I never had deeper and more meaningful conversations with students than out on the trail. I never heard such honesty, and even desperation, as students were seeking to make sense of their lives, figure out who they are, seek to follow Christ, and wrestle with some of the pain they’d experienced already in their young life.

It was a rich time. It was so rich because it was so real. There were no masks, no trying to look or sound good, no pretending that I had my life all together. I saw lots of tears. I saw anger. I saw sadness. But I also saw hope and courage and joy. I saw a deep longing for connection, which we experienced in a unique way on these trips, but the connection went far beyond a backpacking trip. It was a longing for connection with God and others. Each of us saw the connections being made on the trail, and it led to a yearning for this experience throughout our lives.

We often talked about going home as the trip came to an end. It was a conversation which contained both sadness and hopefulness. Sadness that this experience was over and we couldn’t live here backpacking in Colorado. The sadness was also reflected in us by wrestling with the ‘need’ to put on the mask again – to be driven by a desire to please others or to look a certain way so we’d be accepted. Each of us felt the pressure to ‘keep up appearances,’ but I think each of us felt the inauthentic nature of this pursuit. Would we be who we were before we came and fall back into the same ruts? Or would we have the courage to be ourselves? This hopefulness was seen in a desire to be different. We saw how our warts kept us from experiencing connections with each other, and we committed together to live differently and be different. We felt the challenge of being real with people, and we were overwhelmed with the gift it was to feel and be connected with others who loved us in spite of our warts.

Jesus consistently called His Church to unity. He called for a unity of the body. Often, I think our perceptions are that this means we get along. We agree with each other about the fundamentals of following Jesus Christ. But I believe Jesus is saying more than embracing the same doctrinal truths that make us Christian. I believe He is a calling us into authenticity with each other – a recognition of our deep need to be connected as a primary means by which we experience intimacy with Jesus. We aren’t connected in this way by agreement, but only in relationship. And apart from authenticity, there really is no relationship in the way God intended. It’s amazing, too, how authenticity eradicates what the people of the church are criticized for more than anything else – hypocrisy. You can’t be an authentic hypocrite. They are mutually exclusive.