Response to Divided Video

This article is in response to the video "Divided" produced by the NCFIC (National Center for Family Integrated Churches)

Here is a link to the video: http://vimeo.com/26098320

The arguments made by the video are in bold my response to each statement is beneath the bolded arguments:

2/3 of young people are going to leave the church – Research by George Barna

The Barna group also says that 2/3rds of all Christians accept Christ before the age of 18.

The statistics given are skewed at best, and in some places wrong. The video makes the claim that the certain percent of people who leave the church never come back. The Fuller Youth Institute did an intense and expansive study on the subject and their statistics on the same subject matter have differing results (for more see the studies done by Dr. Clark Chapman and Dr. Kara Powell)

The NCFIC Produced the video. The group’s overall goal is to eliminate all children’s, youth , and college programs. The groups is made up of mostly hyper-Calvinist, primitive, and fundamental Baptist churches. The NCFIC used the video as a promotional video for integrating their program into churches. Several of the churches who make up the NCFIC are also anti-missional. A trait that often presents with hyper-Calvinism. Their only purpose is discipleship, completely ignoring evangelism.

Christian Concert “Kids are being told that the fun music of the world can bring them closer to God.”

When did Christian music (rock, punk, hip-hop, country, or otherwise) ever make that claim…in fact because of the fact that it is “Christian” music doesn’t it mean that the music is not the fun music of the world?

Teenagers listen to many different kinds of music. Is any music that sounds similar to any other type of music ever played on non-Christian radio bad?

The documenter uses an example of what seems to be a singular Christian rock concert to refute any Christian music

I think we all know that my generation needs to abandon the world and flee to Christ. And yet here I see no distinction between the worldliness and calling it Christian.

 My initial thoughts of this statement take me to 1 Corinthians 9 where Paul says he will become all things to all people. What specifically makes this generation more in need of Christ. We all have sinned and fallen short. When the Bible was written people struggled with “being in the world” it is not a new development.

Young Old Earth Argument – “If we can’t answer that question it shows the world that we just have this blind faith and we don’t really believe this book and it is not real history any way”

Not everyone is going to interpret the Bible in the exact same way. He is basically saying that if anyone struggles with interpreting any scripture then they are do not know God. That faith is a side note to grasping with, wrestling with and trying to truly understand scripture and the revelation of the Gospel. The viewpoint that is put forward is not one of blind faith but total acceptance because the our pastor or parents said so instead of teaching our children to have their own faith.

It also seems that they are making the argument that if a person does not believe in a literal six day creation then they are not Christians.

The video makes the assumption that most youth ministries in the US just do big events to attract the masses.

This pays no attention to the massive success and breadth of the small group movement.

Youth Ministries are not Biblical

Teenagers are also a demographic that did not exist when the text was written. The Hebrew family went from child to man at the age of 13. This argument gives no credence to the development or changes is sociological and psychological study. The argument made is that since scripture says nothing about youth ministries they should not exist. The verbiage that churches have used to describe this concept is “Where the scripture speaks we speak. Where the scripture is silent we are silent.” This is a major part of the foundation of the Church of Christ (and the reason they exclude any kind of instrument in their worship). This is also one of the foundations of the fundamentalist movement in the early 20^th century, which would explain why so many NCFIC churches are Primitive and Fundamentalist churched. Generally these churches practice “my way or the highway” when it comes to cooperating with other churches, denominations, associations, or Christian groups.

The argument that youth ministries are not Biblical is as ridiculous as saying plastic communion cups, Bible covers, felt boards, computers, projectors, Bass guitars, DVD curriculum, Christian Conferences, or inspirations Christian literature are not Biblical. They are all tools for the use of the Church to point people to Jesus. Again 1 Corinthians 9.

Churches aren’t authentic because when people are told to be themselves they don’t see truth

Truth isn’t found in self-reflection. Truth is through the revelation of Jesus.

Youth Ministries Cannot Over reach the influence of Parents

This is a good point and the documenter is correct but you can see in the interviews that his agenda to abolish youth ministries in favor of the NCFIC platform is contradictory to what the Youth Pastors he is interviewing are saying. He makes the comment “I think we can all see there has been a problem with youth ministries in the last few years.” They are saying that youth pastors and ministries have to work with parents and that Youth pastors have the responsibility to help parents as well.

The Sunday School Movement that was fathered by Raiks is opposed by many including a Reverend Thomas Burns

I could sum it up but the argument made here is a very good one and is already articulated well.

The segregation of youth into their own culture and grade system is rooted in pagan principles

The argument presented by the video is this:

Plato (427BC) argued that children must be separated from their parents à Rousseau (18^th Century) said “The education of Children is more important to the state than it was to their fathers.” à Robert Raiks (18^th Century) promoted social reform called Sunday School àG. Stanley Hall (19^th and 20^th Centuries and an atheist) Applied Darwinian evolution to child development theory and co defined the modern concept of adolescence àJohn Dewey (19^th and 20^th Century) Institutionalized the age segregated classroom environmentIt is then suggested that theses are “Pagan seeds planted over thousands of years that are now bearing fruit in our churches”

Argument summary: Modern Youth ministry is a derivative of Sunday School which was begun by Robert Raiks. Sunday School is usually segregated by school grade. Segregated School grades came about as a result of thousands of years of philosophical thinking that was pagan. Therefore Youth Ministry is bad because it is the result of Paganism.

There are so many things wrong with this argument, I will try to hit the big stuff:

1. Modern Youth Ministry is not Sunday School.
2.  The Sunday School Movement was started by Raiks who was a Christian, not a pagan and did began a movement that resulted in hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of born again Christians. The video also ignores the work of DL Moody and other Sunday School pioneers who most people regard as heroes in church history.
3.  The argument that school is segregated by grade as a result of thousands of years of philosophy fails to paint the full picture or philosophical viewpoints. The culture in which the philosophers lived is significantly different than ours and cannot be superimposed onto our cultural morality. Furthermore there is no visible link between the men mentioned in the timeline. I can pick several guys out of history and say they all chopped down trees so they helped develop modern saw mills but in actuality the men have no connection with one another.
4.  G. Stanley Hall was an atheist but that does not mean that his work is useless. There is a single atheist in the philosophical chain presented so the video makes the assumption that the entire movement (which is not even a real movement) is invalid and paganistic. By this argument Christmas and Easter should also be banned because they have links to paganism as well (except their links to paganism are stronger, more document, and actually can be proven).
5. Nowhere does the video mention developmental cycles published by Freud or Erickson. It chooses to ignore sociological and physiological studies completely.

Dr. Voddie Baachman argues against age defined ministry by stating that it is a form of worship that is not depicted in scripture. He goes on to retell the story of Uzza found in 2 Sam 6 where a man dies when touching the Ark. – Bachmaan – Says that our innovation becomes dangerous when we worship him in ways scripture that God has not told us to worship him.

This argument is that is essentially the same as the one earlier stated “When scripture speaks we speak. When Scripture is silent we are silent.” The only problem with this argument for Dr. Baachman is that he is the pastor of a church that they are a very multi-media friendly church utilizing for worship things that did not exist in scripture including, websites, podcasts, guitars, keyboards, and projectors. Is it wrong to use any of these things as tools to aid people in worshiping God?

“Is it possible that the crisis in the church is a form of God’s judgment on the church for reaching out its hand, in a sense doing something completely against the command of God, to solve a problem with the youth?”

I am not sure how to deal with this statement. At first I just got angry at the kid for being so presumptuous to assume such knowledge of the judgment of God. The suggestions of the action by God are not at al congruent with the Biblical character f God, who wants to give good things to his children.  This again reflect the underlining reform (Calvinistic) theology behind the group, who attribute many things to the wrath of God.

All the meetings in the Old and New Testament are age integrated

Scripture often segregates groups. Jesus himself segregated among the apostles. Women were segregated because it was thought that they were worth less and had less understanding of scripture. The Nation of Israel was segregated, the book of Numbers is entirely about segregation.

The Second half of the Movie presents the NCFIC church format: Churches without any ministries other than congregational meetings.

I will restate:

The NCFIC Produced the video. The group’s overall goal is to eliminate all children’s, youth , and college programs. The groups is made up of mostly hyper-Calvinist, primitive, and fundamental Baptist churches. The NCFIC used the video as a promotional video for integrating their program into churches. Several of the churches who make up the NCFIC are also anti-missional. A trait that often presents with hyper-Calvinism. Their only purpose is discipleship, completely ignoring evangelism.

If you follow the path to the logical conclusion of the argument that the video makes, then anyone who works in age emphasized ministries may have good intentions but none of them has accurately heard God. Not in a calling to ministry, not in prayer for vision casting or planning, not an answered prayer to use the ministry to reach different children. Again this is a very fundamental hyper-Calvinistic viewpoint to assume that only those who agree with their view points accurately hears God.

What the NCFIC appears to do is fund a young film maker as he travels the country speaking to different leaders within their organization and make it seem that the young film maker is going on a spiritual journey.

The accurate point that the video makes is that Parents need to be the ones who raise and disciple their children. But instead of abandonment of ministries, the church and parents need to work together.  ReThink Group is an organization lead by Reggie Joiner who wrote the book and philosophy Think Orange.  The premises of both is that if parents can influence children, and the church can influence children how much stronger is the influence when they work together.

There are several resources that deal with some of the issues brought up in the video but deal with them without the abandonment of ministries and can positively impact kids.

Think Orange

Slow Fade

Zombies, Football, and The Gospel

Parenting Beyond Your Capacity

--Reggie Joiner

Sticky Faith

--Kara Powell and Chap Clark

Daughters and Dads

Deep Ministry in a Shallow World

From Father to Son

--Chap Clark

UnChrisian

You Lost Me

­-- David Kinnaman

Jesus and Children

Matthew 19:13-15 ¹³ Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, ¹⁴ but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” ¹⁵ And he laid his hands on them and went away.

I recently read this passage while writing a description for a church website’s parenting section. My first thoughts when I read this passage are always the pictures of a cheesy smiling white Jesus who is covered with children, similar to a statute that doubles as a pigeon hot spot. Growing up in church, it is a story that I heard in VBS as I was told to sing “Jesus Loves All the Little Children.” As an adult i have frequently glazed over the passage but after having read it again this week it proves to hold more than I gave it credit for. These are my observations:

Parent’s understood the importance of Jesus.

No matter if it is parents, grandparents, or just concerned community leaders, there were parental adults who recognized that Jesus was important.  For parents, children are our most guarded assets, and culturally the Hebrew people have recognized this since Mt. Sinai. If they were allowing their children to be exposed to Jesus, the parents recognized that the things he taught weren’t just different, they were life changing.

Parent’s understood need for their children to encounter Jesus.

The parents didn’t just want their children to hear or see Jesus, they desired him to touch and bless them. For parents who wanted the best for their children, they recognized that encountering Jesus had the power to shape children and that his blessing meant something. Jesus had the power to change the children’s lives.

Opposition arose. 

There were also people who opposed the idea of children being close to Jesus (and those people were actually the disciples). They recognized the importance of Jesus but not the importance of the children. Maybe they didn’t want to bother him, thought children weren’t important enough, or were trying to make sure the children didn’t disturb the teaching, but for whatever reason they attempted to stop the Children from encountering Jesus.

Jesus showed his accessibility.

Jesus didn’t allow the opposition to stop the children from accessing him. He made himself accessible to everyone he was teaching to regardless of their age and silenced the opposition. 

Jesus understood that the children would be the next generation of faith.

When Jesus silenced the opposition the reason he gives for allowing the children to come to him was because the kingdom of heaven belonged to them. Jesus understood that the children present would be the future faith generation, and I would wager to say that many of them were in the first generation of the Christian church.

The principles that this passage teaches are still important to parents and children today. Parents need to recognize the importance of Jesus and what he accomplished on the cross.  Parents still want the very best for their children, and if they recognize the importance of Jesus they will want their children to also. There is always going to be opposition to the growth of faith the children’s lives. Often the opposition comes in the form of culture, but also can be in the form of church leadership who don’t understand the importance of children as the future of the church. Jesus still makes himself accessible regardless of age and he can do incredible things in and through those who come to him.  Our children are the future of our faith and church. Their faith should not be overlooked but admired as an example.  

Response to "What's So Uncool About the Cool Church"

Response to “What’s so uncool about cool churches.”

The article written by Matt Marino, an Episcopal Priest working in the “Canon for Youth and Young Adults” for the Diocese of Arizona, offers the premise that the relevant church and segregated youth ministries are, “killing Christianity.” If you have not read the article you can find it here http://thegospelside.com/2012/09/23/whats-so-uncool-about-cool-churches/

In his article Marino makes a few very good points, specifically concerning the actions of the first century church. Marino states, “The church went out to the highways and byways loving and serving the least, last and lost. In that body of Christ, Christians shared their faith with Romans 1:16 boldness, served the poor with abandon, fed widows and took orphans into their homes. The world noticed. We went to them in love rather than invited them to our event.”

While the previous statement is very good (and very quotable), overall the article itself proves to be misinformed and over-generalized - beginning with the premise of the article that “relevant” churches and segregated youth ministries are killing Christianity. I take maybe the most offense to this beginning statement because it boils two thousand years of a globally growing and passionate faith down to something that can be eliminated by American youth groups.  Regardless that it ignores global missions, underground churches in China and India, and the 77% of US citizens who claim to be Christians (and yes I realize that not all of those are true born again Christians), when did we start being able to limit what God can do through our perspectives of what is wrong with the world?

Marino states in his article three different statistics. The first argument, “20-30 year olds attend church at 1/2 the rate of their parents and ¼ the rate of their grandparents,” has no citation, seems vague, and seemingly inaccurate. After searching for a good bit I couldn’t find any similar statistics with hard evidence to speak for or against it, but since he cites his other two statistics and does on the first I am assuming he has no real evidence. The other two statistics that the article gives state that “61% of churched graduates never go back,” and “78% - 88% of students in youth programs will leave church and most to never return.” The article goes on to say, “Study after study after study suggests that what we are building for the future is…empty churches.” This statement is simply inaccurate, or at the least incomplete. While I don’t doubt that what he researched presents what the author thinks are accurate statistics there are also statics that say only 40%-50% of graduates and youth group attends will leave their faith when they leave for college (Fuller Youth Institute). Other stats show that 60% of those that leave will return to their faith and church in their late twenties (Wade Clark Roof and Lynn Gesch). Mathematically this insinuates that only 24% - 30% of those who graduate will not be in the future church, meaning that 70% - 76% will be part of the future church. While Marino makes a good point that anyone leaving their faith when they graduate is a MAJOR issue it is not the hopeless abandonment of the church forever.

The article continues and states that we are letting Market-driven youth ministries determine the future of what the church will look like. The author makes it seem that it’s bad to have things within the church that people like and if there is any similarity between church/youth ministry and culture then it must be negative (but more on this later). The article goes on to list eight marks of market driven youth ministries, which most large or “relevant” churches would fit into.

1. Segregation. The argument presented is that churches have segregated our children and youth and think that youth services are better than “big church.” The assumption with this argument is that the strongest place for a family to grow their faith is in the larger church service as a family. But what if the place to instill faith isn’t in the main service…what if it isn’t in the church building at all? Faith and discipleship for families has to begin in the home, not in the church building. The other side to this argument is that the reason churches separate by age groups (and genders) is because they want to teach each age group what is most relevant to them. While the article mentions the term “relevant” (in a negative sense) it fails to mention the opposite word…irrelevant. Often what is taught to adults in church is irrelevant to where teenagers and children are in their own walk with God.  It is also interesting to see what happens in churches that do not divide by age…the age groups self-segregate. Children hang out with other children, teenagers with other teenagers, and adults with other adults.

2. Big=Effective. Marino states “Big is (by definition) program driven: Less personal, lower commitment; a cultural and social thing as much as a spiritual thing. Are those the values that we actually hold?” This first part of the statement implies that large churches are less personal and have fewer committed people.  While I would agree that people can fall through the cracks…most large churches I am aware of strongly encourage small group ministries to create personal community.  Concerning commitment level, I have worked in various different churches, in different denominations, consisting of very large “relevant” churches and small traditional churches, but no matter what churches I have worked in I have found it at times difficult to get the volunteers and participants that I want or need. In every church there are going to be people with a low commitment level. It seems with this issue that everyone looks at the total numbers and not the ratio. I would wager (and no I don’t have any hard evidence to back this up) that the ratio of committed to non-committed would be close to the same in most churches.

Marino’s further comment about churches being as much a cultural and social thing as as a spiritual thing is an unfair statement that has little grounding. To assume that any large church or youth ministry that has a social or cultural aspects value those as equal to things of the spirit over generalizes all large churches together and undermines thousands of people who work hard to show Jesus to people on a weekly basis. I find this statement offensive as it assumes a negative position of the hearts of anyone leading a large church or youth ministry.

3. More Programs Attended=Stronger Discipleship. The article cites a Chicago church that previously had the mindset that the more programs that were offered the more people would grow in their relationships with God. The church recently came out and retracted the statement saying that they felt that there was no correlation between the number of program attendees and spiritual maturity. For the most part I whole-heartedly agree with the point that Marino makes here. To have programs for the sake of programs has become a bit ridiculous, but if no one attends anything then there will be zero spiritual maturity. At some level there has to be some kind of programming within churches but the shift needs (and has begun) to take place where the emphasis is not on the quantity of programs but the quality. The pastor I currently work for has helped changed my viewpoint by simply asking the question “Why?” What is the purpose of having that program? If it is a worthwhile purpose and the program achieves that purpose, then great!  But the purpose is lacking or the program is not successful then don’t do it anymore.

4. Christian Replacementism.  The article states, “We developed a Christian version of everything the world offers: Christian bands, novels, schools, soccer leagues, t-shirts. We created the perfect Christian bubble.” Regardless of the fact that none of the items in the list operate within a youth ministry (maybe with the exception of a Christian Band)… The last time I checked there were no Christian sex trades, or Church sponsored serial killer clubs. Those are things of the world. Bands, novels, schools, soccer leagues, and t-shirts are things of culture. The mistake that the author repeatedly makes is making culture and things of the world synonymous. It is the same argument of the spiritual vs. the secular. That there are Christian things and there are secular things. Christian things are good and all secular things are bad. This leaves a paradox because it leads to the same fallacy that the author points out in the first place, a Christian bubble. What if the bubble wasn’t about what you did, but how you did it? I love our church softball team…because we use it as an outreach to others. I love listening to LeCrae, who will be able to reach lost people with his music that I would never be able to reach.  I love ironic Christian t-shirts…they start some awesome conversations with lost people.

5. Cultural “Relevance” Over Transformation. The idea behind this mark is that transformational experiences have taken a back seat to culturally “relevant” church settings. The article then compares worship to a concert hall, sermons to a comedy club, and the foyer to a coffee shop. My first question concerning this mark is where does having high quality worship, a funny preacher, or a coffee shop in the foyer mean that churches don’t strive for transformational experiences?  Sometimes those concert hall worship services help to transform people, sometimes humor can get through to people in a way that hellfire, and damnation cannot, and sometimes people just need a cup of coffee and someone to talk to. Again we see the article’s prejudice against anything culturally “relevant” within the church, without a solid foundation to base the prejudice.  And on a side note…what youth go to comedy clubs? I know very few young adults who go to comedy clubs.

6. Professionalization.  The article states, “If we do know an unbeliever, we don’t need to share Christ with them, we have pastors to do that. We invite them to something… to an ‘inviter’ event… we invite them to our ‘Christian’ subculture.” I am not sure I have ever been to a church that has this mentality…and I have been in several churches. I have attended evangelical events but never have I seen a church give permission to let their people not share the gospel but instead let a pastor or priest do it.

7. “McDonald’s-ization” vs. Contextualization.  In the section Marino says that, “It is no longer our own vision and passion. We purchase it as a package from today’s biggest going mega-church. It is almost like a ‘franchise fee’ from Saddleback or The Resurgence.” I can understand the point that the author is trying to get across here and for the most part agree with this one, but what about the small churches who only have volunteers leading a ministry?  That volunteer may have a huge heart for students but lack the knowledge or skill to write unique curriculum for a situation. For the most part larger “cool” “relevant” churches are the ones creating the content that is sold not the ones that are purchasing it. So I am unclear how this mark fits into the overall theme that the cool “relevant” church and big youth ministries are killing Christianity.

8. Attractional over Missional. The argument present in this mark is essentially the Seeker vs Nurture debate. This issue really is a HUGE can of worms if you want to hear a good debate over it check out The Elephant Room 1 Session 1 between Steven Furtick and Matt Chandler https://vimeo.com/59137574 .

The article continues to offer the solution for what it considers market-driven ministry, “…instead of giving people what they want, give people what they need.” Marino goes on to say, “Where we have opted for a relevant, homogenously grouped, segregated, attractional professionalized model, the early church did it with a multi-ethnic, multi-social class, seeker INsensitive church. Worship was filled with sacrament and symbol. It engaged the believing community in the Christian narrative.” The problem with comparing modern churches to the early church is that you have to pick and choose. People pick and choose things in the church that they do not like and look back and the first century church and say “they didn’t do it that way.” Another side note, the sacraments and symbolism that exist in the church, including the Episcopal tradition, weren’t implemented into the church until the Gregorian Papacy…a few hundred years after the first century church that the article cites.  It is a good thing to be a “multi-ethnic, multi-social class,” church that is a “fellowship of the transformed, that goes out into the highways and byways loving and serving the least, last and lost. In that body of Christ, Christians shares their faith with Romans 1:16 boldness, serves the poor with abandon, feed widows and takes orphans into their home,” but saying that churches aren’t doing this because they are striving to be relevant and culturally aware is judging the hearts and minds of those in leadership of those individual institutions and illogical since the author is not in the staff meetings or involved in the ministry of all of those churches. Again the article over-generalizes all “relevant” and large churches when it is impossible to say that all of them are or are not one thing or another because it is physically impossible to be in them all.

The Episcopal tradition…the one most closely associated with the author and the article is a tradition of symbolism and sacrament. While I truly do love worshiping God in their services, the Episcopal, and it’s Anglican parental traditions, are two of the poorest attended traditions by young people (Pew Research 2013). While I don’t doubt that the traditions teach Jesus and the transforming power of Christianity inside their walls, I do venture to think that the traditions themselves are becoming irrelevant to young people.

The article consistently makes reference of “relevant” churches like it is a bad thing.  Relevance is a connection to the people and when churches become irrelevant to people regardless of how attractional or missional a church is, people will not be there. Within the article, modern relevance is thought of as something that needs to be disregarded. But if churches were never relevant to the people who attend them there would be no microphones, stages, offering plates, or even cups to hold the Eucharist.

Without cultural awareness there is no Christmas in December or Easter in March/April. If you want a pill to swallow…swallow this one…When the church stops being relevant to teenagers they will go to something that is relevant to them and the statistics will get staggeringly worse.

The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.  To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

Paul states that he was willing to become all things to all people so the he could save people for the sake of the Gospel. We are culturally aware and relevant in the same way, so that we can save people in the name of Jesus.