Is there any good reason for kids raised in the church to stay involved with church as they get older? Specifically, is there any reason why church involvement in the late elementary school years is important?
Two weeks ago I alluded to an alarming statistic regarding middle school students and the Bible. This is it: about 75% of them believe they know pretty much everything the Bible teaches - that there is basically nothing new to learn because they've heard all the stories. The Barna Institute discovered this in surveying churched kids.
If these kids attend churches where the programs are modeled after school classrooms and if we have emphasized above all else the accumulation of knowledge, that means the relevance of continuing to attend church is a question they are seriously beginning to wonder about themselves: Why should I continue to go when I already know all the stories?
In my last entry, I offered that during the late elementary years especially, kids need to develop a sense of belonging at church. They need to feel like they belong to the whole, as well as that they have a place within the whole - some sort of smaller group - to which they belong. Without this sense that I am needed there, kids will get over church in a hurry.
The second aspect of value that I see developed through continued church involvement is identity. Identity is related to belonging, in that if kids don't feel they belong, they are unlikely to take on the identifying characteristics of the members of the group.
Quite plainly, by the time your kid enters junior high, you want them to be able to state unabashedly "I am a Christian", and by that to mean not only that they assent to basic Christian doctrine and teachings, but that they see themselves as a Christian, distinct from being merely religious or spiritual or none of the above. Identity formation is crucial as kids head into the teenage years. As I wrote a few weeks ago in an essay on keeping kids drug-free, "good kid" is not an identity anyone embraces. No one wants to be defined in the negative, by the things they don't do. But if a kid can say in all honesty that their reason for living as they do is that they are in pursuit of a relationship with Christ, that has some traction, and that's where we want to bring kids to.
I am not advocating that our churches adopt a Christian nurture model, which rests on the idea that if we surround our kids with Christian culture and practices from birth, they will "grow up Christian" and never regard themselves as otherwise. I think there is great danger in having kids believe that Christianity is just a set of practices, or nothing more than a lifestyle, or that to be a Christian means primarily that you are present more often than not when the church body comes together. This is weak sauce and does not aspire to the great adventure of true Christian spirituality, which has a thriving personal dimension, not just a corporate one.
What I am talking about is paying attention to whether, by age 12, a kid has started to own their faith, which is not necessarily a product of how involved they are in the life of the church. Parents of regular churchgoing kids and occasional attending kids need to honestly assess within their own child whether that kid has any shame in being called "Christian". If there is resistance to that label, a clue could lie in studying what's going on with those outside the church.
It has been observed that the generation now coming of age wants to "belong before they'll believe." In other words, they are asking the questions, "Do I belong here?" and "Can I see myself being one of these people?" and "If I have to change to belong to this group, is it a change I can live with?" If the answer to any of those questions is "no", it's not likely that person will continue on the journey, but look for something that is more "them" and offers what they're looking for. Consumerist? Maybe. But much of this is a reaction to the perceived hypocrisy of churches that say one thing and do another, a suspicion of organized religion, and a protection against getting burned.
The Church would do well to sit up and take notice: it has a terrible image problem. And that has led people to "say yes to Jesus and no to the Church". Well, these are just discontented people who can't accept that the Bible teaches moral absolutes, you say. The Church is better off without them. Think again. In their landmark 2005 book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton found that "spiritual but not religious" - the supposed phenomenon where young people are trying out all kinds of new religions and fashioning together whatever makes sense and works for them - is largely a myth. By and large, the group studied (which is now entering young adulthood) refuses to cast judgment on spiritual seekers but they themselves are not embracing hybrid spirituality. Make no mistake - there is a large segment of society who desire God but have rejected church, rejected "Christian community", and resist wearing the Christian label.
This may be one of the biggest differences between moderns and postmoderns when it comes to ministry. For people my age and older, identification was assumed; what mattered in church was that you learned the Bible stories, the creeds, the verse of the week, and perhaps that your behavior conformed to what was expected of a Christian. Postmoderns need a different approach. There will be a time to teach them content, but they have an eye on the bigger picture: what's at the end of this road, who will I become, and who is with me? If they're not satisfied that the overall direction is genuine and worthwhile, they will not buy into the process of disciplemaking.
That's why it's imperative that we invest time in these kids as they grow and why they value hanging out and being together over formal instruction. Helping kids develop a Christian identity takes very little skill and there is practically no method, other than to be as authentic as possible and spend generous amounts of time. Our church model is built around that - the presence of numerous adult leaders in our class is not some divide-and-conquer crowd control strategy! The leaders in 4th-6th grade (and we are always looking to add to the team) are eager to share themselves with your kids, to model what it is to be a Christian. Regular, consistent contact is the best way to achieve that. Camps, where kids share the experience with an older counselor, are invaluable for it as well.
We want kids to wear the "Christian" descriptor proudly, not as a front, but in a way that penetrates their own consciousness. How can they develop that if they genuinely don't know any other Christians?
Info, articles, and thoughts for parents of kids at North Coast Calvary Chapel.
