Last Lord’s Supper sermon we started to answer this question: What do we aspire to do as a church? This is the second of what has now turned into three topical sermons.
Specifically working hard at transferring the faith to children, teens, and young adults. Psalm 78:4 says, We will not hide them from their children/but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.
We will do what we can so that the next generation enjoys spending time among Christ and His church. How mainly will that happen? Recently I was speaking with some young adults who had grown up in the church but who, when they exited high school, had either wandered or almost wandered from the paths of righteousness. They said the same thing: that they traced their post high school shakiness to not having been pushed intellectually in the faith at church when they were in high school.
That’s a common mistake: we think young people want to have fun, hear inspirational stories, and listen to cool music, so we react accordingly. President George Bush called this kind of stuff “the soft bigotry of low expecations.”
But teach them doctrine? Spend time preparing them to defend their faith – even against their own doubts? Expect that they know their way around the Bible and can follow the train of thought in sacred texts and know how to deal with different genres of literature? This’ll be boring for them. Let’s throw Christian concerts at them…hype, fun, emotionalism. NO. The way for young people to enjoy faith is by teaching them…the faith. What is not enjoyable is secretly realizing that your understanding is shallow, that you are quoting slogans that you really don’t understand.
Our spiritual ancestor, Timothy, learned the Scriptures from his youth. This is the way. Childhood is the best time to get steeped into the stories of Scripture, the commandments, then wisdom literature – being drummed into them the great law of cause and effect and also exposing them to the strangely encouraging melancholy of Ecclesiastes. And all the way through pointing out the vacuousness of the thinking of the world that’s in rebellion to the Creator, demonstrating how their complaints about and arguments against Christianity are both flawed and counsels of despair.
Church life for young people should include a good deal of enjoyment…fun. But again, fun isn’t only or even mainly games and activities. Fun is working alongside the adults in the church, deepening relationships with other youth through working toward more unity in the faith… …and then a little bit of games and activities.
We want to Involve young people in service toward the church, and not just on Sundays. When they’re here next, ask my sons and they’ll tell you of great memories at church work days, working alongside the adults. Helping church people move or rake the leaves of the old ladies – there’s a lot of laughter and pranks mixed into the work. The point is, when I see, for an example, the Skypeks girls serving food and drinks at a church wedding reception, I don’t think, those poor girls carrying all those dishes and food around. Rather, what a great clean satisfying memory of serving the body of Christ they’re acquiring today.
Alongside of this emphasis of transferring faith to the young, we will be deliberate about one-on-one or small-group mentoring for those new to the faith. Remember, these are aspirations…we’re not where we want to be! Where we want to be is that everyone who is baptized is rushed…RUSHED…into a 1-1 or small class where he/she acquires basic Christian habits and concepts.
America – including small town New England – is decidedly post-Christian. Our ignorance of the Bible, especially compared to our ancestors a couple generations ago, is stunning. In Christianity 101 I’ve stopped asking for Old Testament stories that people know because when I’ve asked, blank stares. And then I thought, well, they’re just not recalling, so then I say David and Goliath…Daniel in the Lion’s Den… Joseph and the coat of many colors. THEY HAVEN’T EVEN HEARD OF THE MUSICAL!
Point being that we’re often starting from scratch teaching people stories, the overarching story, how to read different literature, giving them reasons for ethics around sex and child-rearing and roles in marriage and…. Making the case for presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice. We can’t assume that people new to the faith will pick up through sermons all that they need to know to get going on their own. There needs to be a setting for people to crawl slowly through texts, ask basic questions, to push back and be pushed back on.
Beyond transferring faith to the next generation and new believers, we are constantly thinking in terms of teaching teachers. Teaching teachers to explain the Scriptures. But here I don’t simply mean by teaching, teaching in a formal context. Listen to what Paul says to the church in Rome: I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. Romans 15:14. There is such a thing – and Paul thought it existed in the Roman congregation – of a church-wide culture of being mature human beings who have a deep understanding of the world given through the Scriptures and who are building each other up in knowledge. The church we were a member of when I was in seminary was there. We can get there.
We want everyone in the church to become more adept at and enthusiastic about the ministry of the Word to one another. When I meet with people to talk about whatever, we’ll often take the first 10-15 minutes and just read through and then discuss a couple verse that have nothing to do with our subsequent conversation. That initial biblical conversation just primes the Spiritual pump for whatever we’ll talk through next. There is something really clean and satisfying about thinking through a text slowly with another Christian. Insights bubble up to the surface. Excitement grows. Applications to life start crystallizing. Problems start getting solved. Filled with knowledge and able to instruct one another.
Last night I was on Facetime with my boys spread across three time zones and we were crawling slowly through a passage. We met for 30 minutes and I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to learn together. To hear insights. To correct mistaken insights. One of my lines last night to one of Kai’s contributions was: Kai is almost 180 degrees wrong.
I can’t think of a more authentic Christian scene then two or three Christians talking over sacred Scripture and thereby instructing one another and their own selves! Bookend that conversation with a prayer for insight and a prayer of gratitude and commitment. Let’s let the word of Christ dwell among us richly! Let’s become less awkward and more adept at bringing the Lord and his instruction into our common lives. That is, we will let the word of God intrude into the most casual or heretofore secular atmospheres, perhaps in the shape of questions or reading or admonition or . . .
And in these ongoing Scripture filled conversations there will be some who show themselves to be especially articulate, knowledgeable, discerning – and it becomes clear: here are our formal teachers. But what we’re trying to do is even every last one of us becoming better at speaking God’s Word – in Deuteronomy, in Hosea, in Kings, in the letters.
Oh, is there not clarity and cleanness and vitality in the Word rightly understood and properly applied. There sure is. And remember that there’s a great library of excellent books available to you so that you become more proficient in understanding and can speak to one another with more understanding.
The church wants to take decided steps toward evangelizing non-Christians. This includes regular classes for outsiders to learn about Christianity. Our outreach typically will be course-oriented, not event-oriented. This isn’t the only way to get the Word out, but it is one recorded in Scripture. Turn to Acts 17.
Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” 4 And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.
You notice that Paul is teaching non-Christian Jews over a period of weeks, gradually building his case for Jesus being the Christ. (Notice, he’s teaching people who have a background with words like “Christ” and with whom he can assume a shared respect for Scripture…that’s different from a lot of people we’re talking to today!) Also, notice the words “reasoned,” “explain,” “proving.” He’s not trying to create an atmosphere of thick emotion but rather he’s building a logical case.
Taking time to appeal to people’s reason and build up their knowledge is the best way to communicate the faith. Emotional appeals or trying to set up a dramatic personal experience often don’t last. Shawn Ryan, a Navy Seal turned podcaster, became a Christian through a psychedelic experience. Though he normally has military guests onto his podcast, he’ll occasionally have guests on his podcast who relay their conversion experience, and those episodes have titles similar to one I saw this week: “I was shown hell.” Evidently someone got right with God because he had this compelling vision of the end of not being right with God. Well, I don’t want to discount any way that God chooses to bring people to himself, but I still say the most effective way, especially for the long term, is through teaching and reason.
I’m regularly surprised when I hear that a church has no regular method for teaching non-Christians the basics of the faith, the GOSPEL. If we’re not doing at least this, then what are we doing? As you know we call our four-week course, “Christianity 101.” Our next class begins September 17. It’d be good if more in the church are able to lead this course…and make it better. So, if that’s of interest to you, plan to attend. If you’re someone who isn’t quite clear what Christianity is about, plan to attend. If you have been talking with some family members or friends about faith and think they’re ready for a more structured (though still conversational) course, invite them and attend with them.
Along the lines of expanding understanding of faith beyond the church, we keep literature always on hand that is free for the taking and able to be passed out. Find that in the foyers. Some of that literature is helpful for saints and non-Christians. All can be handed without embarrassment to outsiders.
Without embarrassment. Because our aim is to please God in a society that is trying to set up life away from him, our thinking and conduct inevitably will look weird to outsiders in some ways. But one of the things that I aspire for our church to be is not weird in many ways. We should hate that cult-like atmosphere where there’s this spiritual buzz and people say things in a way that sounds like it’s from an old book and nothing they say can be argued about because it really has to do more with a vibe. Reject weirdness for weirdness’ sake in a religious setting.
I’m talking about weirdness because I’ve read a lot of Christian literature – tracts and booklets – that has weirdness steaming from it – + bad writing, needlessly provocative, condescending, dramatic in the wrong ways, conflating Christanity with Americana etc. But much of the literature we hand out originates from Australia and New Zealand – areas that long ago turned away from Christ and so the church in these places by now has a lot of experience in speaking to outsiders in ways accessible and compelling.
I highly recommend the Two Ways to Live tract and The Christian Gospel booklet…that booklet is the one I give when meeting with visitors who’ve attended recently.
Alongside our efforts here, we want to place a surprising, almost unreasonable priority on supporting financially missions outside the local church area. Before this church was able to fully support us from our monthly offerings, we were supporting missions for around 2K/ month. Who can say for sure how smart that was, but if we’re going to get it wrong, I’d rather that be on the side of assertively supporting gospel spread and gospel infrastructure outside of SBC.
Paul writes to the church in Thessalonica: Brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored (as happened among you). That’s a good description of a missions partnership: praying and financially supporting and otherwise working so that in other places through other Christians the Scriptures would quickly advance into societies and family cultures and individual minds…and that when that Gospel advances it will be honored: taken seriously, prized above other stories and accounts of reality.
We’re preparing to get started with the first draft of the 2027 budget and we’re looking to spend money from our savings. In deciding how to spend money let’s mainly think strategically about advancing the Word in other places: more church planting, missions trips from here to expose people to the word ministry in other places, perhaps making a fund for Christian academics to bear witness in relatively godless settings, supporting decidedly Christian schools who are forming a biblical worldview. Let most of our spending not be in solving temporal needs but in pushing forward the Word.
I got a little lump in my throat yesterday when I came into 40 Battle and saw all the autumn decorations. The church at work! Thank you! The hill had been weeded. Earlier that week I met with the treasurer. This week a deacons meeting. The church at work!
I want to point out something: all of these things – the finances, the logistics, the aesthetics – are not the main thing but in support of the main thing we’re doing here: speaking the word of God to one another in the power of the Spirit as we anticipate the return of Christ. The great Shepherd is calling and gathering his people and they are baptized into him and eat his communal meal. What marks these people is that when he calls his sheep they hear his voice and they follow him. The Word. The Word. The Word.
Everything the church does is toward the ministry of the Word and then growing out of the ministry of the Word. Over time, it is easy for the tail to wag the dog. So that what we spend our main energies on is activities, hikes, potluck dinners, splashy, expensive outreaches, service trips… OR other noble, edifying, problem-solving but Word-lite or even Word-less endeavors. That our coffees together are Wordless…this happens to me. I met with Treasurer Jordan this week and we should’ve started with the Word. I, of course, blame him.
MINISTRY OF THE WORD! MINISTRY OF THE WORD!
Parents, bring your children to Sunday School week after week after week. That’s not legalism. That’s no more legalism than sending your child to school day after day after day. There’s a lot of holy books and it’ll take a lifetime to start to learn. Sunday School Teachers: don’t keep going over the same material falling back on the normal slogans or cliches but work to say the old thing freshly and work to uncover buried treasures to bring before your class. Church, pray for your teachers.
Church, don’t fall for the revivalistic mistaken notion that what your non-Christian friend or family member needs is a powerful emotional encounter with God. Rather, pray and persuade him toward the Word: acquiring background knowledge, grasping the big picture of how God gradually brought salvation into the world, making conceptual connections, being disabused of mistaken assumptions and ideas he’s carrying around, being persuaded that the gospel is true…and all this argument and persuasion in the power of the Spirit. And all this that will almost certainly take time and extended interest.
Church, get together over coffee and, if only for a few minutes, talk over the Word. Not to lecture or scold or to get a vibe. Just a little more understanding. A little more.
Church, let our budget reflect the priority of the Word running and being glorified. Let’s let ourselves spend and be spent in gathering more people into the local church to learn all that Christ commanded and to eat at his Table until he comes.
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