Pastor Randy Lubbers, First Presbyterian Church of Crystal Lake, Illinois, published this insightful essay on his blog (Still Up In The Air): Eight Habits for Building "Faith Apathy" in Your Kids yesterday.
I found myself nodding and muttering "preach it!" as my inner DCE came out of hiding while reading it. Especially his points about what I view as the obsessive cult of youth sports.
Go over and read it! Then share it around your church.
4 comments:
While I also agree with his points, I find it unproductive.
As in -
The parents who do these things learned this behavior and belief system from their own parents. The misguided generation now creates the apathetic generation in terms of the church. And blaming one group takes the juice out of having to find the solution. Just as pointing fingers at various political groups allows us to avoid actually fixing anything.
There is also an onus on the church to look to itself for how it created an atmosphere where two generations have found it necessary to connect in such superficial ways. Goes both ways.
I would dare to say that it is a very good sign that at least people are still trying to find a reason, any reason, to get to church at all.
I disagree. I do think it is productive for parents to think about how the example they are setting influences their children and make changes in their own behavior if they want to emphasize priorities in life to their children.
Yes. that is productive. But parents today don't roll that way. I am not saying that is right behavior, because I don't believe it is. But most of the parents I know and meet (especially in churches) appear to have a disconnect between themselves as role models and their kids.
The question then, for me, is how would the church inspire or help or teach the parents to view themselves as role models and make changes on their end. Because if left to their own devices, parents will continue with what they've been doing.
I found it funny, yet disturbing. If a parent does not read that, and think about what their normal Sunday routine is saying to their kids, then there are more problems there than just not providing a good religious background.
FWIW .. I passed this on to my former church of membership for next month's newsletter, and my current church will be using it in the newsletter this month.
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