As I get older (and pay more attention to the things around me) I have realized that this is not just a Lutheran denomination phenomenon. It appears to be happening across the board of the evangelical denominations. The statistics are staggering. Only a small percentage of our youth are retaining the faith of their parents and the rest are leaving. I remember when I was younger hearing that once people get married and settle down, they will come back to church. That was the people’s excuse for not putting a lot of effort into the college age crowd. But that isn’t happening any more. They are staying gone. . .<\/p>\n
I’ve had a couple of my previous pastors ask me what I think the problem is and why the church isn’t reaching my generation (especially when we couldn’t find a Lutheran church in Phoenix that meets our needs and started attending a bible church). I’ve often wondered the same thing myself as Nate and I attend services where we were the only people under 40 there. I’ve tried to put my finger on the problem and have offered some suggestions. One of the thoughts I used to have was to blame the fact that there were no “age segregated” groups for people in their 20’s and 30’s after they have graduated from college. We have been hand-held since our nursery age with children’s ministry, then junior high group, then youth group, then college ministry and then you are just dropped on the floor without any more support. Nate and I even participated in and led a 20’s and 30’s small group at our last church thinking that was what we needed. However, it was poorly attended and poorly supported by the church staff. So I have come up short with a valid answer for where my peers are and why they aren’t in the church.<\/p>\n
My mom gave us a book titled “Family Driven Faith” by Voddie Baucham for Christmas. I think he very accurately describes the “problem”. I’m not sure I agree fully with his “solution”, but at least he is trying to address the issue instead of just hoping things get better. His main point is that parents need to be parents according to the biblical standard. For too long we have let the church raise our children for us hoping that they are better at it than we are. But that isn’t God’s plan according to the bible. Parents (and especially fathers) are a huge impact on their children and if we aren’t modeling our faith for them, we are failing.
\nHe starts by making a point that faith needs to be a family affair. The children need to be part of the worship experience and children need to be involved in their faith at home on a daily basis as well as participating in the same activities as their parents at church. That is how I grew up (mostly), we went to worship with my mom and if we wanted to go to Sunday School or youth group that was a secondary hour or on a different day. Nate and I have often commented on the lack of children in the worship services we have attended. We had made a decision to always bring our children to worship with us even though we get many the evil eye when Hannah makes so much as a little peep during the sermon. \ud83d\ude41
\nBaucham goes on to state that the whole model of youth group is flawed in its attempt for a young adult (who probably hasn’t raised any children yet and may not even be married) to raise up biblical youth. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve participated in this system and I think all the people involved have their hearts in the right place, it just isn’t working well. We can’t send our children out into a group of largely non-Christian youth and expect them to make an impact on their peers when they are still discovering their faith for themselves.
\nBaucham also pushes for homeschooling your children for the same reasons. The public school system’s goals are not to raise Christian children and some of the course material is even anti-biblical. So in that respect, why should we allow non-Christian minded people to teach our children for us and expect our children to stick with our faith after high school is over and they are out on their own. Same argument about expecting our Christian children to make an impact on their non-Christian peers. It is like sending an untrained soldier out to war without a gun, they are just not prepared or mature enough to fight the fight and may end up surrendering to the other side.<\/p>\n
All this to say that we have a problem. Do I know what to do about it? No. Am I going to homeschool my children? I don’t know yet. How can the church change? It won’t be easy. This is a complete redesign of the current system and a complete rethinking of things and habits that we have assumed over the years. Baucham uses the buzz words “Family Integrated Churches” to define a church that has done this redesign, that focuses on training and discipling fathers to be spiritual leaders in their households, trains mothers to train up their children biblically, and that honors children as blessings from God instead of sending them off to nursery when they get a little noisy. I think it sounds messy, but I’m strangely drawn to the theory behind it. I hope that they can deliver everything they set out to do. I’ve looked up a couple churches that claim to be like this in our area and we are going to go try one out. So, once we’ve had an experience of this type of church setting, I’ll give you an update.<\/p>\n
These ideas were strange to me at first, but they are starting to grow on me. Any comments? Thoughts?<\/p>\n
Anyone else feel the way I do? That being a parent isn’t looked upon as a privilege but as a burden. That our children are expected to be great musicians and athletes and academic scholars but no emphasis is placed on their spiritual training?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I get older (and pay more attention to the things around me) I have realized that this is not just a Lutheran denomination phenomenon. It appears to be happening across the board of the evangelical denominations. The statistics are staggering. Only a small percentage of our youth are retaining the faith of their parents…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[245,9],"tags":[4498,1101,4497,4499],"class_list":["post-5675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-becca-2","category-faith","tag-aging","tag-church","tag-dying","tag-generations","wpcat-245-id","wpcat-9-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p504YJ-1tx","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8822,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2010\/04\/days-of-elijah","url_meta":{"origin":5675,"position":0},"title":"Days of Elijah","author":"Becca","date":"April 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We sang Days of Elijah in church today. . . oh I miss my Aggie Lutheran songbook!","rel":"","context":"In "Becca"","block_context":{"text":"Becca","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/becca-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18100,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/memorial-info-2","url_meta":{"origin":5675,"position":1},"title":"Memorial Info","author":"Becca","date":"June 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Celebration of Life Service honoring Pastor Glenn Moehring on Sunday, June 27th at 2pm at Grace Lutheran Church Bandera, TX.","rel":"","context":"In "Family"","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/family"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/glenn-memorial.jpg?fit=1000%2C563&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/glenn-memorial.jpg?fit=1000%2C563&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/glenn-memorial.jpg?fit=1000%2C563&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/glenn-memorial.jpg?fit=1000%2C563&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5749,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2008\/03\/the-church-i-grew-up-in","url_meta":{"origin":5675,"position":2},"title":"The Church I Grew Up In","author":"Becca","date":"March 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was asked to share my 'faith story' in small group the other day. It has been awhile since I've thought about it and I was very surprised to find out as I talked through it that I have added many new struggles to it since the last time it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Becca"","block_context":{"text":"Becca","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/becca-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/zion.jpg?fit=1200%2C960&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/zion.jpg?fit=1200%2C960&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/zion.jpg?fit=1200%2C960&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/zion.jpg?fit=1200%2C960&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/zion.jpg?fit=1200%2C960&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":717,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2010\/06\/how-did-we-get-here-no-infant-baptism-and-no-child-dedication","url_meta":{"origin":5675,"position":3},"title":"How did we get here? – No infant baptism and no child dedication . . .","author":"Becca","date":"June 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I suppose its my turn to write some stuff down . . . 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Please note that this post is not intended to judge anyone else, the following is just the reasoning behind why we have done what we have in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/faith"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/05-becca-hannah-benjamin2.jpg?fit=1000%2C735&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/05-becca-hannah-benjamin2.jpg?fit=1000%2C735&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/05-becca-hannah-benjamin2.jpg?fit=1000%2C735&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/05-becca-hannah-benjamin2.jpg?fit=1000%2C735&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":933,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2010\/12\/faith-obedience","url_meta":{"origin":5675,"position":4},"title":"faith + obedience","author":"Nate","date":"December 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I've shared a few instances of how I've seen God move in powerful ways this year.\u00a0 These experiences have caused me to expect that any time I go to church or pray I will have an encounter with Him.\u00a0 I think this is a good position of faith to be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/faith"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14242,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2020\/03\/first-church","url_meta":{"origin":5675,"position":5},"title":"First Church","author":"Becca","date":"March 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Sister got to come to church with us this morning and really had fun in her classes. 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