Saturday, March 27, 2010

Church we have a problem


I sometimes default to an opinion that is bright eyed and bushy tailed. An opinion that things aren't as bad as they seem. Most college students that go to big time universities basically have faith, but just are getting their freak on, I naively think although I experienced something different in college. However, I am once again proven wrong when I try to gloss things over, God reminds me of the depravity of man.

I have had a few discussions with students at the great University of Wisconsin-Madison. All of which grew up in a LCMS church, have staunchly conservative parents, and were taught what it means to be a Christian. However, they ALL have basically denied the faith, question the validity of the Bible, and are antagonistic toward any type of conservative view (pro-life, pro-marriage, etc).

What is the answer?

We need to start digging deeper. In a typical church, one that I am most comfortable with, sings songs we like, does an occasional skit, focuses on what types of lillies to get, and learn simple stories in Sunday school...then we send our kids to UW-Madison and expect it to work out fine. We need to have majority of our adults highly skilled in the Bible, apologetics, Lutheran doctrine, and creation science. At the same time, our Sunday School and Bible studies all need to center on Christ, His Work, and ask all the questions that people are asking. Then once our young people are in college we bombard them with information about faith, encouraging letters, visits, and talks about faith. Then after college, we bombard them again with information about life, help in the real world, and resources of how to find good churches.

I'm ready to start tomorrow. Who is with me?

1 comment:

Rev. Larry Beane said...

Dear Pastor:

In today's Bible class, we watched a video by Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis called Genesis: The Key to Reclaiming the Culture.

We had a great parish retreat this weekend and our speaker was a biologist and creation scientist, Dr. David DeWitt of Liberty University (he is also an LCMS Lutheran). He was an outstanding speaker! Here is a 2009 Washington Post article about his annual trip to the Smithsonian.

I highly recommend the book Already Gone by Ken Ham. I believe it correctly critiques the way we teach Sunday School and the way we treat the Bible as a huge part of the problem of young people leaving the faith - a problem just now becoming an epidemic.

Thank you for your insights! I think we need all of our brethren one the same page on this!