Creativity

Equipping the Saints: Blessed Are the Educated, For They Shall Know God

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Seeing the light...For the last month, I’ve been writing about the dire state of education in our Christian churches. People don’t know their Bibles, don’t know what their churches believe, don’t know how their Faith intersects daily living in 21st century America—in short, I will venture to say that the average adult Christian sitting in the pew of an American church today has less understanding of God than the average 10-year-old did 100 years ago.

And that’s pathetic. Whatever Christian education initiatives we’ve been foisting off on the people in the seats aren’t working. And they haven’t been working for a long time.

Truth is, I could write about this issue forever. It might become all I ever talk about here at Cerulean Sanctum. In reality, if you go back over past posts, the emphasis at this blog has always been to understand why so many people in the American Church today feel lackluster in their faith and what we can do about. So perhaps this current series is just a synopsis of six years of writing about discipleship. (I’ll let you read through the archives and draw your own conclusions.)

What follows below are ideas I’m convinced are a right start. They’re haphazard and not fully developed in this post, but I’m convinced that if we started doing these things in our churches, we’d gain the forward momentum we so badly need.

If I had to find one fault with the way we teach people about the Christian Faith, it’s that nothing we say this week reinforces what we said last week. In the same way, education in our churches fails on every level to reinforce what the Christian Church for centuries believes.

Why is it that nearly everything we do educationally within our churches reduces to gossamer that blows away at the slightest breath? How then can we expect people to withstand the gale force winds that exemplify our times?

Is it any wonder that no one evangelizes anymore? We say that what we believe is a matter of heaven or hell, but if we don’t know the basics of those beliefs, why would we want to parade our ignorance before other people?

Our young people who go through years and years of youth group graduate from high school and immediately shipwreck, with (depending on whose figures you read) anywhere from 50 to 85 percent falling away within a few years from the faith they supposedly once held deeply.

Is any of this resonating?

I think it all goes back to reinforcement, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly reiterating what we know and why. This takes the truth of God and packs it down deep into every nook and cranny of the soul. It gives people truth to fall back on because they continually hear it.

Learning is a relentless reinforcing that happens on every level of one’s interaction with the world. And we Christians can either reinforce the Kingdom of God in each other, or we can let the kingdom of the world plant its payload of corruption in our very hearts 24/7/365.

One of those kingdoms will win in the end, and I prefer it be God’s.

What follows is my take on just that kind of reinforcement as it plays out in a hypothetical church that I call Faith Fellowship.

When you walk into Faith Fellowship for the first time, on the left wall of the lobby is a massive poster that lists the 10 key beliefs of the church. On the right wall hangs the huge poster containing the corresponding 10 ways the church lives out those beliefs in practical daily discipleship.

The leadership of Faith sought the Lord concerning these 20 total statements,  and every member of Faith had some say in their creation. Together, the people of Faith seek God to help them live out these 10 beliefs and 10 discipleship statements. Their shared statements are core to the purpose and heart of the church, reflected in every piece of the educational program.

You simply cannot miss those posters when you walk in. In addition, the pastor of Faith preaches twice yearly on the purposes of the church as espoused in the beliefs and discipleship statements, and the statements are taught age-appropriately at all levels within the educational system at Faith.

Because of Faith Fellowship’s conviction that education is critical to presenting men and women mature in Christ, the church has both adult and child Sunday School programs. In addition, it is assumed that additional educational opportunities will exist through small groups, formal midweek classes, and outreach opportunities that put what was learned into practice.

Faith Fellowship maintains at least one year-round Bible overview course that teaches a Christian worldview based on creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. In addition, a “jump in at any time” class covers the major themes of each book of the Bible, with a systematic chapter by chapter walkthrough. These classes are taught by those in church leadership who have shown themselves adept at handling the Bible. A course on how to read the Bible and correctly study it is also ongoing.

Because Faith believes that truth must be reinforced, the Christian education department at the church constructed a church-year curriculum in conjunction with pastors and preachers that teaches the same message age-appropriately through the sermon, midweek teachings, and all Sunday school classes.

How this works at Faith Fellowship is that the morning message delivered in the service may be on the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the Sunday School classes that follow the service offer a further unpacking of that parable’s message. The preacher is made available to interact with adult Sunday School attendees to field questions and to work with teachers to make sure the parable is grasped.

In addition, the children’s Sunday School classes also discuss the Good Samaritan, ensuring that parents and children have been taught the same material. This allows families to further discuss the teaching during the week (rather than putting parents in the weak position of having to dredge out of their kids “what they learned in church today.”)

Faith also believes that families should worship together regularly, so the children  stay for the entire service on the first Sunday of the month. At these times, they receive a children’s sermon geared for their understanding that reinforces the preacher’s message.

The teaching cycle at Faith allows for a mix of straight Bible book/chapter/verse exposition and also topical messages. The leadership believes that a methodical teaching through the Bible is essential to grasp the entirety of the Bible’s message, while also understanding that topical series are necessary from time to time to address specific issues of the day. Faith believes that an either/or approach, as other churches often justify, only weakens overall understanding.

Also, because the leadership at Faith affirms the leading of the Spirit, cycles may be disrupted when the Spirit puts a particular message on a preaching/teaching leader’s heart. In those cases, Sunday School leaders may elect to follow the leading or substitute any of several general lessons that would apply at any time in the teaching cycle.

Unlike some churches, the youth ministry program at Faith Fellowship maintains a teaching cycle consistent with the overall teaching cycle of the church. Faith’s leaders also recognize the true purpose of the youth pastor (and children’s Sunday school leadership) must be to instruct parents in how to teach their own children the truths of the Christian faith.  (This goal is assisted by the teaching cycle of the church, asit constantly reinforces the message age-appropriately, ensuring parents are more likely to know how to answer children’s questions on what they learned that week in church because the parent’s themselves received the same teaching, albeit at a more challenging level.) The youth pastor and children’s Sunday School leadership offer classes for parents on how to become better teachers within the home, and they work alongside those households missing a parent by offering supplemental help through a volunteer program that enlists others to help teach with the single parent.

The youth ministry program at the church also includes a catechism and/or “rite of passage” program that works to ensure core doctrines of the church (especially those reflected in the 10 beliefs and 10 discipleship statements) are both understood and lived in measurable ways that qualify youth to be full-fledged members of the adult congregation. Upon completing the catechism, youth are directed into adult responsibilities within the church as fitting to their identified spiritual gifts, but only after successfully passing the program to the satisfaction of church leadership.

The most controversial aspect of Faith Fellowship’s educational program is that it understands that church discipline is essential to ensuring the growth of people in the church. Full membership in the church requires that a set of educational standards be met and upheld by each prospective member. Growth isn’t a recommendation but the sign of the Holy Spirit working in the life of the believer. For this reason, the leadership will work in any way possible with those who fail to meet agreed-upon educational standards of the church. And even in those cases when no agreement can be found, the leadership of the church will work within the situation to help find a less demanding church that may be better suited for the individual. The leadership of the church doesn’t flinch from the reality that many are called, but few are chosen.

Faith Fellowship has many other aspects to its educational program. The people of Faith have refined these teaching standards to a place where people within the church grow and mature according to the Scriptures and the leadership of the Holy Spirit. It’s a successful direction that has made Faith a force for the Kingdom of God for the last 20 years.

I believe such a church as Faith Fellowship is possible—but only if you and I are serious about discipleship. As I noted, I’ve left much out of this discussion of this hypothetical church, but the fact remains: We Christians have got to start someplace, and I believe this is a good start, especially when coupled with the ideas I presented in a previous post in this series, “Equipping the Saints: What We Must Expect…and When.”

I won’t sit here and claim that implementing an educational system like Faith Fellowship’s would be easy. It wouldn’t be. It would require everyone put down his or her own agenda and focus on what matters. It demands a lot from the leadership and the people running the educational program. It demands a lot from the people in the seats. It’s not easy. But then again, growth isn’t easy.

Look, we can play at church for the rest of our lives and remain dabblers who don’t know what we’re talking about. Or we can grow up and leave infancy behind us.

The choice is ours. Now who out there is bold enough to start getting serious about discipleship?

Equipping the Saints: That Catchy Tune

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I’ve long been a fan of Leonard Ravenhill, the British revivalist. Ravenhill can pack more punches in five minutes than the average megachurch pastor delivers in five years. We need more men like him.

If you listen to enough Ravenhill, the first unusual aspect of his preaching is that he continually sprinkles his messages with lines from hymns. What’s most amazing to me is that he’s probably doing this off the cuff. In other words, those hymns are deep inside him.

When we begin thinking about ways in which the Church in America can improve its education of the Body, Less drumming, more theology?most people look past music. I don’t.

“Shooting at the walls of heartache, bang, bang, I am _______________.”

If you’re over 40, I’ll bet the majority of you can fill in the blank to that lyric.  Yep, it’s “the warrior.” I have a bazillion pop/rock songs from my youth filling my head. Fact is, I wish I could get rid of most of them, but there they stick.

Likewise—and in a far more edifying way—I believe our Christian hymnody is critical to transmitting truth that sticks with people.

When I was sitting down to write this post, the first hymn that popped into my head was this one:

The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is His new creation,
By water and the word:
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.

Elect from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

Frankly, that’s a theology lesson in two verses. If you know that hymn, you’ve got a solid base of truth in your noggin.

Compare that to what CCLI says is the number one church worship song today:

Come, now is the time to worship
Come, now is the time to give your heart
Come, just as you are to worship
Come, just as you are before your God
Come

One day ev’ry tongue will confess You are God
One day ev’ry knee will bow
Still the greatest treause remains for those
Who gladly choose you now

It’s a good song. We sing it in our church. We played it just a few weeks ago, in fact. But you can’t escape the reality that just doesn’t say as much. In addition, it swaps the meaning of the word you between the refrain and the verse. I mean, just who is you ?

We could fisk old hymns and new worship songs forever, probably, but reading through old Methodist and Lutheran hymnals shows a far more rich theology than flipping through the average Vineyard, Integrity, or Hosanna worship song collection.

I believe there is a solid place for contemporary worship songs that are God-directed and contain more “emotional” lyrics. I remember the first Vineyard worship song CD collection I picked up. I was blown away. And honestly, it made me look at the Vineyard more seriously. It’s one reason why I spent 16 years in Vineyard churches.

But as is so common with American Christians, we pushed the pendulum so far the other direction on hymnody that we lost the rich base of hymns that were theology lessons in four verses and a chorus. Too much of what we sing today is devoid of theology beyond “God loves me.” Yes, that’s an essential truth, but c’mon…

One will argue that today’s songs are more directed toward the Lord, and while some of that is true, it’s missing a greater truth. A hymn like “The Church’s One Foundation” is like the stones the Lord asked the Hebrews to pile beside the Jordan to remember their crossing into the promised land. Hymns that aren’t directed right at God have a place because they remind us of who we are and what the Lord has done. They are the stones of memory that bolster our foundation in the truths we believe.

It saddens me to no end that my son’s generation will grow up oblivious to hymns like “Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart,” “For All the Saints,” “Christ the Lord Has Risen Today,” “O Sacred Head Now Wounded,” “And Can It Be,” and on and on. I might sing them at home, but if my son hears them nowhere else, they will become artifacts, just like my dad singing opera arias is an artifact to me. My son may recall a nebulous, nostalgic mood, but the hymns will have otherwise lost their intended meaning.

I will go so far as to say that music’s staying power places it above nearly every other mode of communication. I may not be able to remember the content of a sermon I heard preached two months ago, but chances are high I’ll be able to recall and sing most of the new worship song that debuted that same Sunday morning.

And that’s why this issue of theology set to music matters. If the average Joe in the pew remembers a dozen hymns packed with spiritual goodness and depth, perhaps he’ll recall their truths in the time of testing in a way that he may not have responded based on other, less sticky, sources.

If we want to build a stronger Christian, then let’s write better songs that highlight the core doctrines of the Faith.

Still Looking for a Few Good Men

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When I was growing up, it seemed like men were different.

I can’t put my finger on it exactly—and maybe it’s a rose-colored glasses thing tinted by youth and inexperience—but men seemed more serious back in the 1960s than the men of today. Back then, if a man who lived nearby said he’d meet you at 6 p.m. Friday in a neighborhood park to toss a baseball, he would

—actually show up

—actually show up on time

—show you something you didn’t know, like how to throw a curveball or a sinker

—possibly bring you a ball to keep

—tell you, in passing,  why alcohol and cigarettes were bad for your health

—watch his language like a hawk

—not even consider any “funny business”

And your parents wouldn’t think twice that you were out alone in a park with a man who was not a relative.

I don’t know if men changed or our ability to trust changed, but it’s not that way anymore.

When I was growing up, there was a sense among all the men that they had a responsibility to boys, even those who were not their own sons. Call it that “tribal” feeling—that men, all men, were charged with ensuring the next generation grew up straight and true, into better men than the generation that spawned them.

God help us—what happened to that ideal?

Back when I was at Wheaton, I wrote a paper on a thesis of my own devising concerning the implications of the loss of rites of passage within the Church. I grew up Lutheran, and to be a full voting member of the church, we had to go through catechism and then be grilled on the Faith by the pastor. Real men from properly trained boysThese were not lobbed question, either, but stuff like What is the nature of Man? and How does Man relate to His Creator? (Today, you’d be hard pressed to find a kid in your youth group who could thoughtfully answer those questions.)

That rite meant something. When you successfully navigated it, the world changed. Adults expected more of you. You could sit on church boards and make decisi0ns along with the rest of the adults. And the men in the church treated you like one of their own.

Today, we have too many churches who have abandoned rites of passage. And it shows, especially when you consider that some polls have 80-85 percent of Christian teens renouncing their faith by the time they graduate from college. Too many of those “enlightened” graduates go on to be brain-dead party boys who screw everything that moves and live in perpetual childhood. Back when America was largely agrarian, children meant something: the survival of the family. But today, children have no genuine purpose except to be children. So why should we be surprised when today’s child-men never outgrow that perception, never developing into the kind of men some of us older guys still remember. Now, asking callow youth to grow up seems like trying to blow out the sun, given that for 21+ years no one bothered to model for them what a real man, a real Christian man, looks like.

I’d like to think that I was one of those old school guys, like the kind I used to know. But I’m not really. I realize that the ideal started fraying with my generation, that we were the first boys that had an uncertain manhood awaiting us. Feminism was on the march, the drug culture was firing up, and so was the culture of privilege and entitlement. Somewhere along the way, manhood did a nosedive and has not recovered.

Not convinced? Need an example?

I don’t think a better example exists than with the current financial meltdown. If you were to go back to the founding of the investment houses, like Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch, those companies were run by real men. If some smart-aleck tried to run subprime-mortgage-backed derivatives  past Mr. Goldman, Mr. Sachs, the Lehman brothers, or Misters Merrill and Lynch, he’d have one of those founders burying a foot about 18 inches deep in his backside. Why? Because those founders were men, and their names meant something. Getting involved in such tawdry schemes violated their ethics and their sense of who they were as men. Today? Most of what passes for men today would trade their reputations for a quick killing in the market, no matter who got slaughtered in the aftermath. And that’s exactly what we saw exposed last year.

This isn’t an appeal to go kill a bear with a pointy stick, as has been epitomized by much of the Christian men’s movement, but to start getting serious and singleminded again about how we turn boys into men, real men, not the poseurs masquerading as  men today. We need to see genuine rites of passage return to our churches, a passage not into Spartan-like manhood but into proper handling of  the Scriptures, women, children, the work world, and on and on.

My fear? That my generation is so compromised that we won’t be able to reconstruct what it is that we have lost so we can pass on something of worth to the boys following us.

And trust me, that’s something that should make men everywhere genuinely afraid.