Let me start out by saying thank you to the students and parents of GCF. Why? It is such a privilege to serve your family at GCF and I appreciate the kindred spirit that we share for our next generation. I appreciate the freedom I have not only to serve GCF but to serve our students a certain way. I am thankful for the balance we have struck in our children’s and youth ministries, between having fun appropriate to the age group and serious challenge in learning.
There is no doubt that GCF takes the Word of God very seriously, as it should. What I am so thankful for is your partnership with me in this. It has produced a culture of learning amongst our students that I am very excited about. We challenge our students to think and to learn what the Bible says in ways that stretches them. I have seen them rise to the standard of expectation time and again. I am thankful that your partnership in ministry means your support and cooperation in this endeavor. Together we are building a place where our faith is passed onto our next generation in meaningful ways. When children were being brought to Jesus and the disciples rebuked them Jesus got angry and warned the disciples "do not hinder them" (Mark 10:14). Is failure to teach the Scriptures in challenging ways one way we hinder children from coming to Jesus? Certainly, setting the expectations too low may hinder the next generation from truly coming to Jesus and knowing him as he is.
I recently attended a conference in which a certain topic was discussed that is surely near and dear to all of our hearts: preparing our students for post high school life. More specifically, what do we need to be doing to help our students faith succeed into college and into their vocation? We scratch our heads over this because the statistics suggest that the transition into college and out of college are key points where fallout happens, and lots of it. By fallout, I mean students will leave the church and the faith. It begs the question why? Why is it at these points that we see fallout happen? Here are a few possibilities for our consideration:
Church is a “Straight Jacket”
What do we mean by “straight jacket?” By this we mean that the church fails to teach on the rich complexities of the gospel in a way that informs all aspects of life. In other words, church is reduced to a series of moral codes that, when pushed, have little relevance to the world outside of the church. For example, when it comes to sex the church essentially says: “don’t until your married.” When it come to homosexuality: “it is a sin.” Pornography: “stop!” Work: “it’s a necessary evil.” Bible: “read it more.” Prayer: “pray more.” Jesus: “love everyone.” Missions: “serve like Jesus served.” Movies and Music: “no bad words or nudity.” These “moral codes” won't profoundly contend for a Christian view of reality or any nuanced way the gospel speaks to all parts of life. As a result many many real questions of a maturing youngster goes unanswered in satisfactory ways and the moral codes simply don’t hold up to the ways faith and culture are in tension with one another. As a result, church feels like a straight jacket.
Faith is Silent in Public Life
This point builds off the last point but here we address the fact that high school and college students are undergoing a rapid understanding of many areas of life that will relate to their vocation. At the same time, they are not being challenged seriously in their understanding of Scripture and their faith remains "stagnant." This is made worse when students were already accustomed to a shallow and superficial understanding of the gospel. It isn’t hard to imagine how students learning biology, physics, chemistry, etc with little to no serious study of Scripture will unwittingly learn that faith isn't all that important. The ways other disciplines demand so much of them while understanding God requires so little may send this unintended message: God isn't relevant. In this way, faith remains mostly silent about the way it should shape a Christian view of reality. All reality! And if faith does show up in public discourse it usually does so in some sort of moral stricture (i.e. Christians stand against the LGBTQ community). Indeed, there are ways the church has a difficult time controlling how Christianity is presented to the world through the public sphere. What I am talking about is the church’s role in equipping believers to see how the truth of the gospel gets applied to every sphere of reality so that they can go into the workforce with kingdom conviction.
Lack of First-Hand Faith
By first-hand faith we mean a relationship with Christ apart from their parents pressure. This is difficult to address because as long as our kids are living under our roof and under our responsibility we will inevitably influence them to walk with Christ. Yet, there are at least two ways we can do better or worse at this. First, parents must not mandate faith. Parents should not have too many moral codes that are assumed with biblical authority. Another word for this is legalism, which elevates preferences of certain practices to the level of God’s commands. If this happens a maturing young man or woman might fail to look into Scripture for themselves so that they might draw out their own convictions and applications. A second way a youngster develops first-hand faith is seeing how faith informs/relates to the details of their lives. This point has essentially been stated already but bears repeating. “The Law of the Lord is perfect,” says Psalm 19:7, and this means every question or concern that a maturing person has can not only be validated by the Bible but answered with sufficiency. When this happens a young person begins to develop a faith of their own that isn’t borrowed.
Let me close by saying again that I am thankful for the ways that we are laying a foundation of Bible literacy and the ways that we are able to take that and apply it to all aspects of their lives. Our students are challenged to learn doctrine, to sit and observe Scripture and they are seeing the ways it starts to address their questions and concerns. This is so crucially important and it is possible because there is a collective willingness to pursue a ministry in which we allow our students to be challenged. For this I am thankful, to God and to you for the opportunity to pursue our joy in seeing young people come to know all of Christ for all of life.
May they know Christ in and through all their transitions for his glory and their joy,
Pastor Kevin
Comments
Post a Comment