Gifted for Leadership

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Kristin,

It is within the traditional church Sunday School, that a child receives the foundations in Christ that are needed to mold the child in the statues,ordinances, laws, and commandments that are necessary for him/her to form their own relationship with God. In doing, they form the basis of their relationship with their parents,siblings, neighbors, school mate, etc. Without this foundation, how will your children protect themselves and their families one day, from daily attacks by Satan? Satan and his Hell are real. When children do not have sound foundations in Christian Knowledge that creates the understanding and performance of prayer, children become easily mislead by others who have no knowledge of God and Jesus, or renounce their relationship with Jesus. Jesus is the way, truth, and light of the world. There is no easy way of getting around those foundations being laid in God, through Christ and Christian Fellowship. His only Begotten Son, died for you, your husband and children. Find your family an organized church body to help your children find their place in Christ and they need both of you to help them understand the Jesus within them.

Posted By: Velma Watson | October 16, 2007 6:31 PM

Kristin,
I also read that page and stopped in my tracks for a bit. It was such a clear statement of what people usually say in more veiled terms.

I wonder if part of the problem is that many Christians represent themselves as if they "go to church" to "get" our spirituality. What people actually want is a spirituality that involves their whole lives. While I fully support the idea that churh is part of the picture, and a very large part, I fear that we can too easily leave our spiritual formation to the "professionals" (aka pastors, leaders, etc).

What would happen if this woman encountered people who lived out their faith - not in platitudes and dos & donts, but in real, integrated living? And then, what would happen if she found out that part of their life was being a part of a church community?

As long as church is something that we have a membership too so that we can reap the benefits of said membership, then the church will continued to be viewed as just another 'option' for working on one's spirituality. If however, we can represent to the world that we ARE the church, can live out of a different reality than the rest of the world, can cheer on glimpses of the Kingdom, can lament and rage when injustice and oppression are winning,...well, then I think this woman might have to give "church" a second look.

Posted By: Andrea | October 17, 2007 9:51 AM

The "being spiritual without being religious" thing is everywhere; it is indeed "the question the church should be contemplating" in our society, and asking ourselves why people are rejecting "traditional church" (whose tradition?). A few are writing about it- Dan Kimball in "They like Jesus but not the Church" and in another recent book "Unchristian".

The "traditional church Sunday School" is less than 200 years old and was begun in England to teach literacy to the multitudes of children who worked in factories and mines- ever read Dickens? There was no free education, so school was not an option for children in poverty. Sunday was their only day off, and some Christians got together and decided to teach the kids to read so that they would have a chance to get out of their destitution.

Did all the Christians for the 1800 years before that have no foundations or knowledge about God and Jesus? And since when has "knowledge", all on its own, equaled Virtue? Even Aristotle recognized that there was not necessarily a connection between the two...

I would ask the woman in the article, and her husband, what was so difficult for them about their church experiences, and go from there. Everyone's story is different, and needs are different, but they can only be addressed in relationship with them; every "right" answer will also involve the time it takes to foster that relationship. Some people need some input about what the church is supposed to be, which means some deeper theological discussion. Others need to come to grips with the notions of "progress" and "perfection" that our 20th century American culture has bequeathed us and realize that there is no perfect church, that we are all still struggling and doing the best we can, and that perfection is not a requirement for following Jesus. We ourselves can help whatever church we decide to attend by making connections with people and being as honest as we can be about everything.

Posted By: Dana Ames | October 17, 2007 12:20 PM

It amazes me when people want to instill faith in their child and want the child to make their own decision without offering the necessary information for the child to come to a conclusion. How can a child develop a strong faith in God when it is not demonstrated? Too often we are taking away all the necessary learning tools and then wondering why wrong decisions are made.

Posted By: TerryAnn | October 17, 2007 12:36 PM

Lisa Graham McMinn has written a wonderful book that is an invaluable resource for parents of daughters. In my opinion every parent of daughters ought to read it. (Actually it's not a bad idea for parents of sons to read it too.)

Growing Strong Daughters is a thoughtfully rich discussion of the challenges and exciting prospects of raising girls in today's world. McMinn and her husband have raised three daughters and have faced substantial challenges in the process. She is a college professor (formerly at Wheaton College, now at George Fox in Oregon), so she's surrounded by young women and knows her subject well. She is a strong advocate for young Christian women to be all that God created them to be--including vital members of the Body of Christ.

She casts a large vision for our daughters and the opportunities before them, grounds them solidly in their relationship with God and underscores the fact that walking with God inevitably involves strong relationships with others in the Body of Christ. This book breaks from the pack of books about raising daughters and is a much needed breath of fresh air on a vitally important subject.

I suspect the mother in the magazine article would find this approach refreshing. It would give her reasons to rethink her goals concerning what she hopes to instill in her daughters. Those who are legitimately concerned at the thought of a disconnected spirituality that isn't anchored to Christ and Scripture will be deeply reassured by McMinn's work as well.

Posted By: Carolyn Custis James | October 17, 2007 3:15 PM

I'd probably liken this line of thinking to eating. Sure, I could make the choice not to feed my children. I'd feed myself sometimes, maybe buy food for the cupboards, but they have to determine on their own whether or not they want to eat, what they want to eat, how to get and prepare the food. Kids are capable of that, right? As long as I let them know that food exists, where it's available, I've done my job?

The next leap is asking what kind of food this mom ate growing up. Did her parents force her to eat only brussel sprouts and gruel, never giving her dessert or pancakes or fruit? Well, that's a great reason to let the child find her own food. Determine on her own that she wants to eat only candy, cake and soda.

Our spiritual diets are as important as our physical diets. More important. That's so hard to understand or remember at times. I think this is probably the conversation I'd have with that mom.

Posted By: Flea | October 17, 2007 6:42 PM

What kind of spirituality is this mother talking about? Does she want her daughter to have the same kind of spirituality as has herself, meaning a sort of faith that doesn't need a church anymore? Is it a spirituality that doesn't nescesarily need God or Jesus anymore, or the communion with 'the saints'?
A strong faith in God should be shown by the parents in word and practice. And if the parents aren't connected with the church, their faith has to grow some more too.

Posted By: Lisa | October 17, 2007 8:29 PM

Lillian Calles Barger in her newest book, Chasing Sophia, says the following: "...we may be casting too much of our spiritual future into the hands of an institution. In this way, we deny our personal responsibility as followers of Jesus. Maybe the church is much bigger than we ever thought. It’s our definitions and expectations of the church that have to change."

A few pages later she says, "…to seek the essence of Christianity within the institutional walls is to be deeply disappointed."

Clearly, the woman quoted in Real Simple magazine and her family have been deeply disappointed. Perhaps - on this woman's behalf and her daughter's - we need to consider what "church" might mean and look like outside the confines of our own historical and personal traditions.

Is it possible that she can get the very thing she desires: a strong faith in God without a special congregation or place of worship...? Centuries of women, men, daughters, and sons did just that through relationship with one another, through story, through compassion, through tradition, through life together. And, if we look to Jesus, we see the same - an understanding of "church" in ways far broader (and freer and inviting) than what we've configured and structured since then.

Despite our insistence that the church is the way to raise up our children into a strong faith and a Christian heritage, our culture increasingly feels differently. It seems to me that the "church" is not truly the church if it can't actually be in relationship with folks who will never darken our doors...and further, not insist that they ever do so.

The challenge for those of us who are in the church is to be as passionate about being outside it's walls on behalf of women like this as we are about getting her inside...perhaps even more so. Our commitment, just as is God's, needs to be to relationship - whether or not that's ever within the confines of a building, a denomination, a doctrinal stance.

Posted By: Ronna | October 17, 2007 9:41 PM

Thank you for addressing the white elephant in the room. For the past 10 years, my wife and I have labored in campus ministry and have had to deal first hand with this issue.

The church is the body that Jesus Christ has put in place and equipped to bring Himself glory and achieve his mission. It is also the place where a fragile sheep can be looked after and cared for. It is not something that should be cast aside casually, as is the trend in our pop culture.

At the same time, there is an honest disconnect that many young people feel with the church as it engages culture. Here are a few meditations that have helped our family and church address the need to ensure the body of Christ is equipped to witness to our world and more importantly, to make sure the heritage of our faith is passed along.

One thing our church has taken to heart is that Jesus valued the young and was insistent that his disciples not prevent the children from coming to him. Taking an honest look at ourselves, we found that many preferences were finding their way into our church culture. There are many things that we are willing to be flexible with in order to communicate with younger people. Consider who the audience is and speak to them. It may sound simple, but it is often overlooked.

That being said, the church is not called to be relevant, but authentic and obedient. We will always be relevant if we are authentic and obedient. Most young people who walk away from the church do so because they did not see it lived out.

When a child becomes a teen, they soon realize that the world is a lot bigger than the world their parents presented to them. It is so very important that we present to them something larger than the world. Our job as parents must not simply be to protect our children, but more importantly, to put them on mission. Are we in the battle for the gospel? If our children see us engaged in the battle, they will join us. I have seen this work. If your children see the stuggle you and your church face for contending for the gospel, it will bridge any generational gap.
God bless.

Posted By: Nick | October 18, 2007 9:22 AM

Well, I don't know how I'd respond to that letter. I do know that if this woman were sitting in front of me I'd start with a lot more questions. What does she mean by wanting her children to have "a strong faith in God"? (This is different language than I usually hear from "I'm spiritual but not religious" people.)

Maybe she just isn't enamoured with great big congregations and very formal, grade-separated Sunday school programs with prescribed rites of passage in particular years regardless of growth of individual spiritual maturity and simply letting her know that house churches exist may solve the problem in a hurry.

If she wants her children to have "spirituality" devoid of any particular doctrinal content, then that's a different matter and I'd definitely start by asking what she means by this and why it's important to her. She's obviously looking for something, although she may not know what.

Posted By: Kristen | October 18, 2007 10:58 AM

I think you all are missing the point. What are we as Christians commanded by Christ (or his Apostles) to do. There is only one instance where we are told to "not stop meeting together" and this is used by all the pastor's I've ever asked as the reason I should be sitting in a pew. However, I finally decided that listening to Sister Suzi preach a sermon is a blatant sin (on the part of all concerned) specifically prohibited by scripture in a number of places. So for me, I can't attend at least half the churches in America. The more I investigated our man-made churches, the more I came to conclude our traditions have trumped scripture. Therefore I no longer attend an institutionalized church. My children will get their spiritual training from me.

Posted By: gary | October 18, 2007 12:54 PM

Our society is full of parents who want their kids to have "values" (even if they're pretty hazy themselves about what those "values" are or what it would mean to practice "values" in their own lives). The last thing we should do is condemn parents who recognise the spiritual vacuum in their kids' lives and want to fill it. There's an opportunity there for us to provide something to fill that gap in a non-threatening way that may just, over time, help bring not only the child but the parents too into a relationship with Christ.

At my church, we're doing this through the ministry of the Girls' Brigade. As what you might call a "scouting-type" organisation (actually, it predates the scouting movement), we provide a wide range of fun activities and leadership training opportunities for kids and teens. The activities and the friendships draw kids and they love it. But our program is Christ-centred - in everything we do, we have a spiritual goal, rather than just doing an activity because it's fun. We actively develop kids into Christian leaders who can take their place in church and the community to make a difference. As kids encounter Christ at GB, families sometimes come to see something that's missing there. We have the Girls' Brigade families to special church services twice a year, which get comments from the visiting GB families like, "Wow...I went to church and the roof didn't fall in on me...and you know, I kind of enjoyed it too." If you'd like more info on our organisation, you can go to www.gbic.org - they'll be able to give you contacts for GB in the US and Canada (I'm in Australia).

So parents like this provide us with a great opportunity to reach out to kids and parents. They're not 100% closed to the things of God. That's a God-given opportunity. Let's use the opportunities God provides!

Posted By: Bronwen | October 20, 2007 2:08 AM

Perhaps this authors traditional church was spiritually dead and patriarchial and doesn't want her children exposed to that. The house church movement is pretty liberal and who knows what theology crawls into those groups.
It's not easy.

Posted By: Donna | October 20, 2007 7:36 AM

Each of us have a story and these parents have their own story. I would start finding out about their lives, their hopes, their dreams, their thoughts about God, about eternal life, about right, wrong, values, morality. Jesus spoke right to the heart of all the different people because he KNEW them. IT is pretty arrogant of any of us to even attempt to understand what this woman was even really saying without getting to know her. We all have spiritual lives since we are all spiritual beings but what kind of spiritual life is she talking about? Questions, questions, and more questions. Our job is not to be defensive about the church, its different structures, or even its history-Jesus is in charge of that. But our job is to love and care and teach the gospel like he did-by knowing real people with real hearts.

Posted By: trisha | October 20, 2007 7:43 PM

I think if I were speaking with this woman or someone in her situation I might find a really good devotional book for her to do with her child. I would definitely suggest Pioneer Clubs for her daughter as a way to have fun and learn about God outside of a traditional church service. I would also suggest that as a family they get involved with a outreach mercy ministry like my church has doing simple home repairs or painting widows homes or singing at a nursing home. And I would bet that those experiences might change their views about being involved in a church and draw them in. but even if it didn't it might be planting seeds in their hearts.

Posted By: Dora | October 26, 2007 9:47 AM

I want to just echo what Trisha and Ronna have said. We need to work harder at understanding people who feel they are 'outside the circle'. We who do church and are comfortable with it truly don't have the same eyes as the woman in the article. She has what feels like insurmountable barriers between herself and God. I appreciate Ronna reminding us that WE are called to go outside to people like this woman. And Trisha's comments about asking questions. Though I would agree with the comments that this woman needs to figure her own spirituality out first, that's not really the point. For all kinds of reasons people like her who are seeking God are not going to church shop or children's ministry shop - at least not alone. For me, I guess it comes down to building relationships still. May God put people just like her in each of our paths.

Posted By: Adie Johnson | October 26, 2007 12:57 PM

If this lady is willing to put such an open, vulnerable question of her soul in print in a magazine, I'm figuring she is willing to bear her soul to friends as well. This article, with the author's stated dilemna, emphasizes the importance of relationship building with those very ones Christ came to seek and to save, entrusting the continuing work to the body of believers He has left here on earth, to be His hands, His feet, to do the work of the Father as He gave us an example. Somehow, we've got to understand that we're the only ones to invite the outsiders into the circle, to spread the story of Christ's sacrifical and inclusive love. Without that, the "world" finds other definitions of what it means to be spiritual. As a popular Chrisitan song says, "We are the Body!"

Posted By: Onda | October 26, 2007 4:38 PM

I too read the same thing, and had a similar reaction. I confess that I did not tear the page out or pray for the family after I read the piece. I got frustrated and left it alone.

What I would like to say is that the question is in two parts. If you're asking how you can foster a general, overall spirituality toward a god that has no specificity other than being god, then you can do that outside of a church. If you're trying to teach your children to have an authentic relatioship with the Emperor and Creator of the Universe, it will require teaching them not only about God as a Being, but about His Word. Teaching your children the Word of God includes teaching them that God encourages us to fellowship with other believers (Hebrews 10: 24-25); and includes walking that out as an example.

There are many, many options for churches and fellowshiping with believers. If you weren't fed by your home church growing up, perhaps moving to another denomination or another church in the same fellowship would be beneficial. (If I'm remembering correctly, the parents were raised Catholic.)

It's true that spirituality and religion are different, and I would also emphasize that. Hopefully the kids and the parents will experience spirituality through prayer, meditation, and study on a daily basis, whether they go to church or not.

Thank you for this question. The responses from people are really great.

Posted By: Nicole | October 27, 2007 12:43 PM

This may be too simple of an answer. But first, kudo's to the mom who wants to be the spiritual champion of her child. Hold on, there's more :-)

When we as parents want to instill and encourage teaching anything in/to our child most of us would teach them what we know and find ways of learning more and reinforcing that (want your child to read - take them to the library - want your child to be athletic - get them on a sports team - I think you get where I'm going.) So if you want to instill spiritual things - why not seek out a church?

Maybe over simplified, but?

Posted By: Debby Fall | October 29, 2007 7:12 AM

For those of us in formal ministry (pastors, assoc. pastors, worship leaders, etc.) this dilemma is why we do what we do, and it sometimes plagues us. Contrary to what some may think, there really does exist a barrier between us and the public. Those not in the church do not flock to us and desire to have us over for pizza and beer to watch football on Sundays. (I'm not relieving those in formal ministry of developing relationships with those outside the church, it is just different for church professionals.)

For us, it comes down to how do we help those in our churches accept the burden of building relationships with those outside the Christian community? How do we help people sitting in our pews each week become comfortable hanging out with people who cuss like sailors and those who have shrines of Buddha erected in their homes and any other number of vices that the church normally looks down upon? Because let's be honest, many of us just aren't all that comfortable hanging out with those that could be considered disfunctional, riff-raff, misfits, "sinners". How does that really look to our church friends, right?

How do we help our church members become the least offendable and most understanding people on the planet earth yet still have senses of humor? It really is those who are regular, everyday church members that are in the flow of "life outside" that create relationships of safety and intimacy where information can be exchanged and transformation can take place. It is in these contacts with neighbors and business partners and PTA associations that conversations happen and the true face of Love is revealed.

How do we rally our fellow laborers to begin bridgeing those gaps; not as a mission to "get people saved", but as a by-product of simply living out Christ in a way that makes sense AND fulfills His mission? (I know that last sentence may seem a bit redundant, but I assure you it is not.)

We so often talk about relationship(s) as the key to changed lives, but it is my guess--just a hunch--that if the Church was putting relationship into action like we enjoy talking about, then this woman may not be in such confusion about how to guide her children into relationship with God.

Posted By: Amanda Oster | November 6, 2007 4:35 PM

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