Someone once said, “The temperature of our churches is set
by the thermostats of our homes.” Yet few churches have a strategy for
strengthening families. Surprisingly, many churches do not even think through
how existing programs might hurt families instead of help them. One of the most
common activities, Sunday School, usually separates families. Visit almost any
church and ask a leader which way people go for Sunday School and the adults,
children, students, and preschoolers we all go in different directions. Churches
using home groups or other offsite groups are often in a worse situation.
Parents go to their small group on one night while students go to theirs on
another. The result is that families are separated for a long time on twice as
many occasions. Yet, with a few simple changes Sunday School and small groups
can become an asset to healthy families and therefore, to healthy churches.
The Problem
Student ministry is only about sixty years old, yet over the
years, churches have helped create a culture in which parents have abdicated
the role of spiritual development of their kids to the church. Richard Ross,
the founder of the True Love Waits movement, says that if one asks the typical
Christian parent if they teach their student algebra, they will respond, “No, I
pay taxes and with those taxes the government builds schools and hires
professionals to do that job better than I could.” In a similar fashion, if
asked if they teach their student faith,
they will respond, “No, I pay tithes and with those tithes the church builds
super-cool youth rooms and hires professionals to do that better than I could.”
George Barna puts it this way: "Unfortunately, no
matter how hard a church tries, it is incapable of bringing a child to complete
spiritual maturity: that is the job of the family.” [Click here to link to the quote.] He also says, “Teenagers rarely embrace Christianity if
their family has treated faith as a Sunday morning experience … the family … must
have worship experiences, pray together about significant personal needs, study
the meaning of Scriptures together, and serve others.” [Real Teens. p. 149, see link in sidebar]
A recent comprehensive study by the University of North
Carolina also confirms that “teenagers seldom
vary very far from the religious beliefs of their parents. Only 11% say their
religious beliefs are very different from their father’s and only 6% say their
beliefs are very different from their mother’s.” [Christian Smith, Soul Searching, Oxford University
Press, 2005, p. 35]
Multiple studies have reached the conclusion that parents are at least twice as
effective in leading students to faith in Christ as even the church is.
So, how can a church turn something as large as Sunday
School into a family friendly environment?
More later....
Comments