A Big Job Ahead

What does it take to "go into all the world and preach the gospel" when the corner of the world where you are is diverse and pluralistic, and the people are busy, transient, and subject to a constant stream of marketers who want their time and attention?

That's a big job, and it calls for a big effort.

This business of disciple-making in Christianity has never been an easy one, even when times were simpler and there was a lot less for people to do. If you believe - as I do - that God is real and that spiritual forces exist, it's understandable why. Every living thing - God included - has wants, and so the matter of what will capture someone's heart-and-mind allegiance comes down to a contest.

As significant figures in the lives of kids - parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles, coaches, teachers, mentors, and ministry workers - what's our role? How can we work most effectively and faithfully? Those are some questions I hope to explore in this space in the weeks to come.

But there are some really key things we need to acknowledge, beyond that disciple-making is hard. They are specific to our culture, and they're truths some people don't want to confront.

The first is that just bringing kids to church isn't enough. Church programming, while really, really important, cannot take the place of a loving home environment, and it cannot supply the well-rounded package of support needed to produce full-orbed disciples. Instead, kids must be intentionally trained, and that training needs to happen not just in church, but at home, in school, on the soccer field - everywhere.

Secondly, there are kids in our culture who will never, ever set foot in a church, yet we are called to reach them, too. If we don't, churches become clubs, catering to their own. It's true that church is not a store. We're not open 24 hours for people's convenience; we don't have drive-thru windows. But if we don't stay mindful of who's "out there", in a few generations, there's no one left. I don't know if you've ever been a part of a dying church, but it's a real thing, and it's painful. Our church right now is healthy and growing, which is great, but America is full of emptying churches that were thriving half a century ago. The perpetuation of a church is never a sure thing.

So, here's the catch: a couple of generations ago, all a church needed to do was its share. Everyone went to church, so if this church and that church and the one down the street each did programs for kids: ta-da! Every kid was being reached.

But we live in a different time. And it calls for a different strategy, both inside the church and outside its walls.

The great Christian Educator John Westerhoff wrote that American churches used to belong to a special "ecology" of institutions, each interacting with the others, that supported spiritual development. This ecology consisted of:
1. Homogeneous communities (everyone thinks and acts like us)
2. Stable nuclear families
3. Public schools (which started the day with prayer and Bible reading)
4. Popular media (popular magazines were often from religious publishers, while stories from the Bible served as the subject for many Hollywood films)
5. Sunday schools (which were an important weekly ritual)
6. Churches (which were hubs of intergenerational social activities)

What's happened to this ecology? Communities grew diverse; family makeup changed. Schools did away with religious rituals; the number and variety of entertainment choices for families exploded. And as we became more mobile and busier, church attendance declined. Sunday schools (children's ministries) were left to shoulder the burden all alone.

To put it another way, what kids received when they went to church used to be the icing on the cake. All week long kids would take in a steady diet of Christian history, symbols, and thought. Church teaching merely reinforced agreed-upon social values. Now though, children's ministry programs are often relied on to accomplish what it used to take a cluster of institutions to do.

What can we do to rebuild that ecology? Is it even possible? Desirable? More next week.