I remember going to church as a young teen. I was a part of an exciting youth ministry at the church. I was a part of a great small group. I was a part of a great worship service at my church. The one thing that didn't click so well for me was Sunday School. I don't fault my teacher at all, but the forced nature of the class begged the question, "Why go?". I think it was a number of things, but primarily it was a structure set in place in the 1950s. Sunday School was set up so students could do their chores on the farm and then go learn to read from the Bible in School around 10:00am. One school house in the community.
Now schools educate our children differently. The Bible is far removed from the schools. Yet churches by and large, still have the structure of Sunday school. So there exists a dichotomy for the student. Learn one subject in church, learn another subject in school, never merge the two. Read the following article to make a little more sense of a recent study stating that 2 out of 3 teens are leaving the church.
Study Showing Teens Leaving Church
My thoughts about the article hit home. I teach youth Sunday School. We cover Creationism. In fact, we just taught about worldviews several weeks ago. We cover doctrine. We cover practical life issues students face. It's really more of a small group than a "Sunday School". No hokey "Jesus answers" here. But it gives me a moment of pause. Why have we hung on so much to a Sunday School structure? It may be our denomination, but other denominations have this as well. We would be wise to reexamine the evolution of the Sunday School Dinosaur. They're leaving in droves according to the research. Not in my case, but for how long? Relationships are key in making any connection with God matter. Perhaps the Sunday School has lost touch, and sequestered itself to one hour on Sunday, hoping to give out just the right nuggets to help the student survive the rest of the week. God help us.
1 comments:
Thought provoking post! This is something that needs to be addressed sooner than later by churches everywhere!
I like the quote from the guy in the article:
"What you see in the Bible is that when there is compromise in one generation, and it's not dealt with, you usually notice it to a greater extent in the next generation."
If we continue to compromise by not addressing this issue, we will see the results of a disturbing ripple effect of students not seeing relevance to church and biblical teachings. Time to pull some heads out of the sand!
Great post!
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