Granted, there’s a lot I don’t get. Sometimes my cynicism gets in the way and I miss the good intentions of what’s going on around me. Sometimes my ADD sends my attention to a conversation on the other side of the room and I miss part of what’s been said at the table I’m at. Sometimes while listening to an ‘expert’ rattle on about their knowledge I get sidetracked by the noise in my own head telling me what I already know about the statistics he’s quoting. But sometimes I think I catch a glimpse of something that makes me question…and it lodges in my brain long enough to be a nuisance.
Case in point: A few days ago, I was listening to one of the editors-in-chief of a big name, religious, flagship-type publishing company from the buckle of the Bible belt present himself. A nice enough guy whom I’m sure is very qualified for his position at said company. He challenged us as student ministers with a very probing and sobering springboard: “The numbers of students are growing (an estimated 33.5 million 12-17 year olds in the US by the year 2010, as well as the number of student ministries (churches with full-time, part-time, bi-vocational, and volunteer youth pastors). The ‘industry’ of youth ministry resources is a multi-million dollar one, growing each year in leaps and bounds via the marketing of CD’s, books, shirts, jewelry, programs, videos, conferences, concerts, retreats, camps, ad naseum…yet the rate of teen baptisms has been significantly declining for several years. The decision has to be made: are we more interested in developing students or student ministries?”
I really thought the wrong question was asked (why can’t we be concerned with both? And why couldn’t we ask a completely different question at this point? Like ‘do you think parents freaked out when their kid came home from camp and said, ‘I wanna get baptized…’ so the follow-up train was stopped? Or ‘don’t you think our consumer culture has ‘branded’ us so adequately that we consider ourselves to already be ‘christian’ because we own the new Kutless CD and don’t really need to be baptized..?’ ) but I didn’t want to make waves, so I went with it….
“We’re really more interested in building students”, we said.
“Of course you are ,” Mr. Dude continued, “but could it be that we’ve grown too dependent on programs to grow our ministries, instead of focusing on developing students? And because of it, we have a generation of biblically illiterate students? Perhaps its time to stop relying on programs and events to teach the Bible to our students.”
Our heads nodded in precarious agreement. Sure. I’ll bite. I completely agree that much of the time, student ministries everywhere rely on curriculum, books, videos, etc. to help them administer the word. Some of it’s great. Some of it’s not.
What then followed was a seemingly convincing argument that we needed to reach parents, and encourage them to fulfill their God-given role as primary spiritual developer of their student (not the student minister)… which, by the way, you can do with this neat little curriculum (program) we’re going to be publishing this summer. Here’s the logo. Here’s the layout. Here’s the plan. Look at our promotional campaign. Memorize our three alliterated points.
Again, I’m a cynic.
I’m all for curriculum and programs. Although he implied differently at the outset, so is Mr. Dude. After all, he does work for you-know-who.
Sometimes, though, curricula are like those flashy, light-up fishing lures you see advertised on late night TV. They look cool. The guy on TV apparently uses it and catches more fish than anyone on the planet. But buy one and you’ll see that it probably catches more fishermen than fish.
Seems like what started off as ‘let’s talk about parent ministry’ quickly became the ‘ol bait-and-switch. It was really an infomercial. A chance to pimp a product that’s still on the development table and hasn’t been tested yet. They’re still fleshing it out.
You and I have also seen something like this in churches and on the street. A strange kind of ‘evangelism’ where the salesman strikes up a conversation, asking pointed questions, building up an argument he’s pretty sure you’ll be on board to knock down. And just at the right moment…out comes just what you need. But wait—there’s more! Because if you act now, you’ll also get the complete set on video. Perfect for small groups, home fellowships, or last-minute fellowships… now I’m ranting. But you get the idea.
I’m still not convinced we need another book on how to be like Jesus or how to raise a kid to be like Jesus. We have the Book given to us by God Himself, yet we spend much more time reading the truckload of other stuff that’s been written about The Book, rather than reading The Book. Even so, we’re still not getting it. We are educated beyond our obedience and we don’t seem too inclined to change anytime soon. Some how, deep down, I believe that if we just began doing what we already know to do, the Spirit would lead us into doing and understanding more.
Don’t know how to be a godly parent? Or what that looks like? Start by reading your Bible. Start by praying for your kids. Passionately. Urgently. Fervently. Pretty soon, you’ll be praying with your kids. Then you’ll start connecting with others who desire and are doing the same thing. Pray with your spouse. Find someone in your church who has successfully raised godly kids and nag them until they tell you their secrets. Then find some parents who are newer to this than you are and pass it on to them. Soon, you’ll have a little community of believing parents that can minister to other parents in your larger community. You’ll be reading the Word together. Praying together. Very quickly you’ll have enough expertise and spiritual growth to write a book about it and develop your own program around it.
But you won’t need to.
