Some of you who are as frustrated as I am sincerely want to know how we fix this. And some of you who are upset with me want to say, “Okay, Mr. Smarty Pants, if you think it’s broken—and I’m not saying it is—how are you going to fix it?” To both of you I would say, “I don’t know. Do you have any suggestions?”
With that being said, I do have a couple of ideas that we might try, as well as some kudos for the good things we do.
Let’s start with the kudos. Although I am not a big fan of short term missions trips (I will elaborate on that elsewhere), I do think that any exposure our kids get outside the walls of our churches is a plus. Whether it’s across town or half way around the globe, the experience of seeing the world through the eyes of the homeless man or the third world child is life-changing.
I do think that it is important to try and replicate and repeatedly perform these kinds of activities on a regular basis right here at home. For fledgling faith, mission trips are often like trying to drink from a fire hose. No wonder our kids come back from such outings all fired up! Unfortunately that furor fades quickly when nothing back home commands their attention and demands their hard work like being “on mission.”
Secondly, there is no doubt that our kids, of all ages, are given excellent instruction. If a kid will pay attention, he or she will learn so much about the Bible and about God from the strong teaching that they receive. Knowledge is a very good thing. Unfortunately, unlike knowledge, discipleship is not learned in a classroom or a church sanctuary. Discipleship comes from doing life together. We will save that discussion for later also.
Now, before I enumerate any ideas of my own, let me state that I think it is important that we first consider something. If we believe this, then the church should both teach and equip parents to be the primary source in the spiritual formation of their own children. And, I believe that in addition to teaching youth pastors how to be relevant to kids, our universities and Bible schools should be strategizing as to the methods to end the exsanguination of our young adults. But that must begin when they are young and proceed throughout their school years.
However, for any changes to work it would take a complete paradigm shift from the lead pastor to the parents to the earliest children’s workers. It would have to be taught from the “pulpit” and bought into by Mom and Dad. And first of all, Mom and Dad would have to buy into the idea of taking responsibility for their own discipleship, let alone for the discipleship of their kids. If you have ever heard anyone leave a church saying, “We just aren’t being fed,” then you know why we are in trouble.
I guess it’s weird that I started feeding myself as a toddler. What’s ever weirder is that I started in my teen years to question everything I had ever been taught. I tried to dig it out of the Bible for myself. But for some people, I guess their view of church is strolling in and strapping on the old feed bag.
Next we will examine some new ideas for accomplishing our purposes.
