Church Matters

First, I'd like to give you the opportunity to listen to a song that's becoming one of my favorites. It's by our son-in-law. Aaron writes good songs, and performs them well. (Is life in the music industry was "fair" you would already know about Aaron and his songs.) This is one of my favorites.  I hope you enjoy the song. It will have something to do with what I want to say in this post. 

How to Bake Bread by Aaron Mark Brown
(can't get the link to work. Aren't you glad there's Google?

Last Sunday I was asked by a local pastor to come and speak to his congregation. He had a specific request.  "Gene," he wrote in a facebook message, "How about sharing from your experience as Chaplain and what the needs are for 20 somethings today, how the church can minister to them. It would be a timely subject for our people. Thanks!,,

I know, EVERYONE, has written, or spoken, or both on this topic for the past decade. I thought about the books I'd read on the topic; David Kinnaman's "You Lost Me," Kenda Creasy Dean's "Almost Christian," and more blogs and articles than can possibly be remembered. And I thought about the young adults it's been my joy to know over the past 22 years.

The "Church-Kids" I've come to know have engaged the  local church in a variety of ways. A few have found church homes in the local community within a few weeks of arriving in their new surroundings. Some of them have spent the better part of their college career "shopping" or simply "visiting." More than a few have done what I did during my Sophomore year of college, they've stopped going altogether. The issue, I suppose, is not how young adults engage the church during college as much as it is the ways in which they will, or won't "re-engage" the church after they have graduated.

I began on Sunday morning by asking the congregation, (about 100 people, mostly "grandparent" age) why they thought young adults had left the church. The 4-5 reasons they offered had one thing in common, they were all about "the WORLD" and how "the WORLD" had influenced our young people. 

Most of the books and articles I've mentioned and read would disagree. "They," that is "the WORLD" are not responsible for the loss of our young. "We," that is the CHURCH" have done this to ourselves. And I agree with this assessment.

So, here are a couple of thoughts, certainly not original with me, on what I think it is that "we" have done that has resulted in the absence of a pretty significant group of "churched" young people.

• We taught them from a VERY young age to sing and to say "Jesus Loves ME." 

• We made "special churches" just for them called "youth groups" where they could get all the way to adulthood without having to bother with adults. 

• We've made church about "church" and not about the Kingdom of God, and, for many of the young adults I've known, "church" is too small a cause to call for the devotion of a life.

Let me know if you think any of these three merit further conversation and we'll make space for it.

What's to be done about all of this? On Sunday morning I suggested that the answer (also, in no way original with me) might just lie in our remembering and remodeling what was going on in the earliest church of all. So, we wandered over to Acts 2:37-46.

Verses 37-41 are what we would call the "big finish" and the "altar call" at the end of Peter's first sermon. In the "big finish" we learn that the focus of Peter's preaching is Jesus. That's it, just Jesus. In the "altar call" we learn that the issue was NOT escaping eternal punishment, but breaking the grip of this "currupt generation."

And, as it turns out, many (3000 on that particular day) were willing to hear the good news of God's grace and break free from the clutches of culture.

In verse 42 we find a brief account of the daily practice of folks who had been set free from the domination of culture. They devoted themselves to the "Apostle's teaching."  That is, they looked for chances to listen to people who knew Jesus tell stories about what He had done, and what He had said. They devoted themselves to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. They devoted themselves to fellowship. And fellowship, by the way, doesn't happen in a structured service on a Sunday morning. Fellowship means doing life together. And they devoted themselves to prayer.

Most churches, and most attenders "like" all of those things, good teaching, fellowship, communion (now and then), and prayer. Not so many of us are "devoted" to any of them.

In verses 43-46 we get a look at the quality of community live that seems to have grown out of this kind of daily practice. It was a life of genuine compassion. These folks cared more about the needs of people around them than about their own "stuff." They began to see their own "private property" as a potential means of meeting the "meetable" needs of folks in their community. (How have we come to see the needs of folks in our community as a threat to the safety of our "private property?) It was a life filled with good times, great fellowship, and a willing to praise God publicly for the gift of new life.

And one other thing. It seems like this new community of Jesus followers lived in such a way that they were actually liked by and "enjoyed the favor" of those in the outside community.

Well, what does this have to do with the question, and what on earth does it have to do with the song?
Young adults have left a church that has left its mission. Young adults have left a church that has stopped seeking truth in the words of Jesus and settled for seminars on adapting corprate practice to congregational activities. Young adults have left a church that, in many ways, has gotten so caught up in doing things Jesus never told them to do that there's little time to do the two or three things that he did tell them to do. Young adults have left a church that has become obsessed with its own safety and prosperity. Young adults have left a church that tells them to "escape from this wicked generation" only to invite them into a culture that is little more than a stained glass reflection of that generation's values and practices.

And this is where the song comes in. "Old folks" like me whine about the loss of our youth and pine for the "good old days" when it wasn't like it is today. We look for something new, something "shiny," something contemporary, something we don't have, but if we did we're pretty sure we'd be able to invite, or at least entice a generation back into the "fold." And then I hear Aaron's words . . . "You don't need an octopus, you don't need a gun . . . you need grain, oil and water, you need fire and a friend.

Your church, my church, doesn't need anything it doesn't already have to BE the church. We need to remember the simple things we were asked to do and do them week after week, year after year. We need to teach our children that God loves everything God has made. And, yes, that means God loves them too. We need to give our young people the opportunity to see and hear people as they get older, raise families, get sick, and even die. We need to remind ourselves that the "success" of our local congregation is not a big enough cause to excite a generation that really does want to see the Kingdom of God come "on earth as it is in heaven."