I recently saw a poster that said: Armageddon: October 12 at 7:00 PM.  I was a little disappointed, because I really wanted to go see my daughter, Naomi in New York that weekend.  Then I realized it was a youth group event at a local church.  To be specific, it was a youth group night of nerf gun warfare in the darkened church building.  The poster advertising the event featured the barrel of a rifle pointed directly at the reader.  I was, to say the least, uncomfortable with the whole thing, especially since the church promoting the event was proudly promoting itself as a "Bible believing" church.

Now please understand, my four brothers and I had toy guns growing up as kids: wooden muskets, plastic machine guns, cap pistols and the like.  I remember playing war with the neighborhood kids as we "shot" the enemies as they drove by.  That day, all blue cars were the enemy army.  Toy guns were a fact of life.  My issue with the local Armageddon simulation isn't merely an aversion to toy guns.

If, as conservative theologians believe, Armageddon will be the last great battle before Christ returns, it seems a bit inappropriate to turn it into a game.  If, as some claim, this will be when all the nations' armies line up against Israel, turning these future events into a game might just be a mix of bad theology and racism.  Even those Christians who believe this eschatological point of view believe that Christians will not be part of the fighting (cheesy Tim LaHaye novels aside).  It is thought to be the place where Jesus will return and defeat Satan for all eternity. Is this something our church kids should be playing at?

In truth, though, Armageddon is not an event, it is a place.  It is a place that lies between Egypt and the Middle East.  While often called a mountain, it is probably a 'tell'; a hill created by multiple civilizations built one on top of the other.  Armageddon  is mentioned only once in scripture (Revelation 16:16), but, throughout history, has been the sight of many battles already.  Do the kids trying to annihilate each other with sponge bullets even aware of this?

To me, though, the bigger underlying question is, is this the best use of a youth group meeting?  In a culture where our young people are increasingly illiterate regarding God's Word, when our young people come to youth group carrying the scars of self injury and the broken hearts of broken homes, are war games really what God would have the church offer?  More to the point, is fabricating World War III the best way to represent the Prince of Peace?  What does the church hope to gain by offering such a contrived event to its young people? 

It is time for the church to dispose of its unspoken but very apparent mantra of "Anything you (the world) can do, we can do five years later and not nearly as well."  Let the 'world' have its paintball tournaments.  Join in, if you choose.  But let's keep the church the church; a place where God's Word is proclaimed, His children are nurtured, and His peace is with us.