Five percent versus 41 percent. Back when I was growing up in the era when basketball shorts were, well … short, only 5 percent of the children were born out of wedlock. Now more than 41 percent of children in America are born out of wedlock; that percentage is even greater is some communities. Due in part to divorce rates being painfully high, many American adults have chosen to jettison "marriage," creating a new non-marital underclass that passes on disastrous consequences that will harm generations to come. In some American neighborhoods, children and teenagers have never even been to a wedding, since marriage has simply ceased to exist as an expectation in their culture.
The "family" has drastically changed. The dynamics of single-parent families, blended families, the impact of new technology and social networking, not to mention overloaded schedules, have presented parents and even the church with a whole new set of challenges. In the wake of all this cultural change, the church has too often been content to pretend they are boldly leading people into the 1950s. The key question is: How can the local church help the families of today? The answer is: Focus on adults, not children!
We need to learn from our past … mistakes. In the past decades, the Christian church has spent far more time teaching and entertaining children than growing healthier adults and equipping parents. In an effort to help families, the church has offered confirmation classes, Sunday school programs, youth ministries, Vacation Bible Schools, Christian day schools, Christian daycares, etc. Originally, such programs were in large part to be tools designed to help parents disciple their own children in the faith, but too often these well-meaning programs morphed into "ecclesiastical crutches" and "substitutionary parents." Regardless of the approach chosen, the problem was parents were clearly given the secondary role of the discipling of their own children and the primary role was given to the "church professionals." This was in direct contrast to what the Bible taught and reformers like Martin Luther emphasized on the first page of his Catechism: "As the head of the family should teach them in the simplest way to those in his household." If your child or teen knows more about the Christian faith than you do, if she can answer basic questions like "Why did Jesus have to be true God and true man?", "Why is Good Friday called 'good'?", or "What really happens to a person when he dies?", "What's my purpose on this earth?" and Dad or Mom can't answer, the local church has not helped that family. The tragic truth is, today, very few parents are actively involved in discipling their own children, which has brought about a plethora of unintended consequences. That's not healthy, and the local church doesn't help the family if it continues to perpetuate such a debilitating practice.
So what can the church do to help the family? The church needs to return to the priority of adult spiritual growth. We, in Christ's church, need to remember children grow best when adults are spiritually well-fed. The importance of adult spiritual growth is critical to the nurture of children. That's the biblical model that needs to be recaptured. Continual spiritual adult growth is not an option but a biblical expectation. The Apostle Paul said, "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things" (Philippians 3:12-15). "All" of us need to be straining and pressing on. And you thought after just a few years of being involved in a small group Bible study, maybe three years of volunteering in the Sunday morning children's program and after a mission trip to Mexico, you could put a check in the spiritually mature box. Apparently not. Apparently, according to the Bible, the quest for spiritual maturity is a lifelong endeavor.
And it is this lifelong endeavor that benefits the family! When children see Mom and Dad taking their faith seriously, growing in it, intentionally practicing it, they often will, too. No one has a greater impact on a child's faith life than a parent. "Churches, on average, have about 40 hours per year to influence the family vs. parents, who have 3,000 hours of influence per year." (Reggie Joiner, "Think Orange") The local church that makes the spiritual growth of adults a top priority accelerates the effectiveness of its ministry to marriages, families and … the community. Remember, adults who haven't grown in their faith or have forgotten much of what they once learned, not only will they not teach their faith to their children but they will not share it with others! That is one of the main reasons the local church has little to no impact in the community. We can do better!
Christians are rightly concerned about the family crisis in our society. There are many contributing factors in the breakdown of the family today, and the church needs to be honest about its contribution. One thing the local church, in an effort to help families, can do is staff, budget and plan around this biblical maxim: The family is stronger and children grow best when adults are spiritually well-fed. It's about the adults!
Dr. John Parlow is pastor at St. Mark Lutheran Church, 2066 Lawrence Drive, De Pere.
**Column courtesy of Green Bay Press-Gazette - Friday, September 5, 2014
