I personally think we need to kill Sunday School and Confirmation before it kills the church.
I don’t know a lot, but from my experience in working in two large churches and consulting a few thousand of them over the last 15 years, I do know that we need a critical mass of change agents across the church to deal with the critical mess of our present parent-less model of Christian education. 225 years of Sunday School “drop off” expectations will not go away easily.
This will require a systems approach to the systems problem.
It will also require a shift in thinking from being mostly PROGAM/SERVICE providers, to a system that rewires our leaders/pastors/staffs to see themselves as PROCESS/MINISTRY encouragers and enablers through a significant partnership with parents.
FOUR BIG QUESTIONS
1. FAMILY MINISTRY: The big question for family ministry is - “What are we trying to accomplish?” Families doing programs, or families doing ministry?
Your church may do PROGRAM as good or better than 98% of the churches out there, but providing a staff-driven PROGRAM once a week vs a parent-engaged nightly PROCESS means that the bulk of the kids will fall through the cracks. You will continue to enable and promote the “drop off” mentality. You’ll always be looking for the next slickest thing to attract and hold their attention in an increasingly busy and distracting world. (“Don’t give me one more thing!”) And you’ll never be able to hire enough staff to do the parents’ job for them.
2. SUNDAY SCHOOL: The big question for Sunday school ministry is also - “What are we trying to accomplish?” Are we attempting to create Christian education as a weekly program/service FOR the parents, or a nightly process/ministry WITH the parents?
3. CONFIRMATION MINISTRY: The big question for confirmation is also - “What are we trying to accomplish?” Dumping doctrine OR capturing their imagination for Jesus and bonding living cells in the body of Christ?
Dumping doctrine into a hormonally challenged child who’s pre-frontal cortex won’t be wired up for another 12 years doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s actually counter-productive. Might I say stupid?
Loving adolescents into the arms of Jesus, injecting the DNA of Christ into the nucleus of a living cell of friends having a blast together at church, and incubating that faith “every night in every home" – now that’s another matter entirely.
4. YOUTH MINISTRY: Ditto for youth ministry – Youth doing ministry, or youth doing programs.
It goes on and on and on like a bad sermon. Sophomores, juniors and seniors don’t have time for one more program. They will, however, always find/make time for their friends. From my experience at a church that focuses on mission every where you look (Trinity/Stillwater), my own kids are so jazzed about Christian service – where they get their hands dirty and can see the direct results of their actions for God in smiling faces and lives transformed – that they LOVE their church for giving them the opportunity to serve in significant ways. The church who calls them to significant leadership with their gifts, talents and friends – that church will grow a new generations of young adults who will see the church as vital community, not peripheral programming.
Be a church from the book of James, and you will be real to the young people. Be real, heal, and steal their hearts for Jesus.
I would appreciate your comments. And please pass this link on to your board, your colleagues, or anyone who you think might want to wade into the conversation.
(PS – I’m in 75 locations this year www.faithink.com/training if you’d like to wade into this discussion in person.)
