Ch 17: Kids:
its really easy
In
Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera “the Pirates of Penzance”
when Frederic, who was mistakenly apprenticed to a pirate as a boy
and now come of age renounces his 'vile profession', an
old hand laments:
“Besides, we can offer you but little
temptation to remain with us. We
don't seem to make piracy pay. I'm sure I don't know why, but we
don't.”
To which Frederick replies: “Well
I do! But alas I may not tell you!”
People in the decades since our
time at Lang Lang have often lamented in my hearing: “We just don't
know how to get young people to church these days.” It has always
reminded me of Frederick, and I have felt like saying; “Well I do!
But alas I may not tell you!” Naturally charity and cowardice
always won out and I said nothing. But it is such an important point
that I will spell it out now.
Reaching young people for Jesus is
simple. Hard work, but dead simple.
The reason I may not tell the
people who wring their hands and lament that they cannot get young
people to church these days is because their motives are wrong! They
may fool themselves that they have the right motive but they don't
even fool me – what chance that they can fool God!
They do not really want to bring
young people to God through Jesus Christ and let them go on together.
They actually want to win young people for themselves. They love
their denomination or style of church service or congregation. They
see its population profile ageing. They see a better future for this
thing they love – denomination, congregation or church service –
if young people swell the ranks. So they desire to bring young people
in ….. but in to a particular human activity as a higher priority
that to the one true God!
It's called “Idolatry”. No
wonder God does not back up their efforts, and that it also why I
would and could not tell them how it can be done!
If you want to reach young people
first get your priorities straight!
They belong to Jesus! He loves
them. He died for them. He bought their salvation with the price of
his own blood! They are infinitely precious. Jesus said “If any one
causes one of these little ones to stumble it would be better for
them at the Judgement to have a large millstone tied around their
necks and be thrown into the sea!”
Smart alpine hikers know the rule:
“Don't get between a bear and her cubs”. Church people need to
learn: “Don't get between Jesus and his little ones!” There is
one and only one permitted reason to reach young people: to bring
them into a relationship with Jesus, perhaps under God to help them
to grow into the full stature of Christ and then in either case to
step back!
If you accept your role as Jesus
emissary. If you accept that they belong to Him, not to you or your
way of doing church or anything else, then reaching young people is
simple.
Here are some of the things we got
to do:
School
holidays were approaching and we had an idea. I think it
was one of those human-but-God-directed ideas. At college most of the
students had cut their teeth in evangelism by helping with summer
“beach missions”. Officially titled “Children's Special Service
Mission” CSSM for short, they were so well staffed with young
evangelical men and women who formed attachments to other staffers
that they were jokingly re-named: Come Single Soon Married”.
However they were very effective in taking the Gospel to children who
were normally outside the influence of the church. They operated by
offering entertaining activities mixed with low key biblical teaching
at popular family beach resorts during the summer holidays.
So we planned to put on something
similar during the coming Autumn school break. Lang Lang church had
no young people in the church but Koo-wee-rup had a number of young
families and a dedicated band of Sunday School teachers. So we did a
combined effort with activities at both churches staffed by current
church people from Koo-wee-rup and mainly new believers from Lang
Lang.
It was amazingly successful. Fun
activities in a small country town attract bored kids like flies to a
BBQ. RE classes in the schools had paved the way but now God had
gone a decisive step further to breaking down the barrier dividing
“the Church” from ordinary kids in the town.
We now had an “in” with Lang
Lang's kids. The next step was to use it.
We believed that God intended us
to use this “in” to start a Sunday School in Lang Lang. We were
beginning to realise that the “old” model of Sunday School would
not do at all.
Three or four decades earlier
churches in general, and Lang Lang was no exception, had large Sunday
Schools. Society in general was much more “churched” is was
simply more socially acceptable. So parents, even though they did not
necessarily attend church themselves, thought Sunday School should be
part of their children's education.
By the 1980's there had been a
gradual but decisive social change. Church attendances were falling.
Congregations were ageing. Sunday Schools were becoming a thing of
the past.
It seemed to us that to try to
prop up a failing institution was wrong. We had to find a new way. A
way that worked now. A way that worked with kids who knew nothing of
“church” but were curious about Jesus and his love.
PS:
STRATEGY TIP
... We didn't know it, but the way God was directing us, which
we thought was something new we were discovering was actually tried
and true military strategy! For the benefit of readers I will briefly
sketch this strategy. It is called (in Australia at any rate)
“Surfaces and Gaps”
What
happens when rain falls on parched cracked ground? It runs off the
hard baked surfaces but it seeps into the cracks!
The
military analogy is this: Where your advance is meeting stiff
resistance is the “surface”: where your troops are advancing
easily is the crack (or gap). The temptation is to throw more
resources at the “surface”. That is a mistake. Sound strategy is
to throw your extra resources where you are succeeding.
Church
people are continually falling into the temptation of throwing more
and more effort into propping up activities and institutions which
are failing. Let them go! Put, under God, your effort into what is
succeeding, or into something new which will succeed.
So we developed a radically new
model for Sunday School. It was exciting. It was different. It
succeeded.
Be patient. It will be another two
blogs before I get to give you the details!
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