In order to know the state of American Christianity, I get a number of e-mail updates from Christian organizations that I don’t necessarily agree with but that provide a good window through which to judge the state of affairs of Christianity in religion and culture. One of those groups is the “Worldview Weekend.” It is an organization that stresses the importance of Christians having a “Christian Worldview.” I agree with that, but I don’t agree with how they define a “Christian Worldview.” On their “Worldview Test,” I came out as a “Secular Humanist.” Well, as one who tends to be more traditional theologically and pietistically, this revelation was quite shocking (and totally ridiculous).
Anyway, I recently got an e-mail update talking about the crisis of young people leaving conservative Evangelical churches in droves. Brannon Howse, the founder of Worldview Weekend, reported on a new book that reports the results of a survey of 1,000 conservative Christian young adults. The book is entitled, “Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it” by Ken Ham, Britt Beemer, with Todd Hillard. The results of the survey I believe, but the analysis of why this is happening or the suggestions to solve the problem I won’t necessarily agree with (just like Howse’s definition of want constitutes a “Christian worldview”).
Here a few points emphasized by Howse from the book:

A mass exodus is underway. Most youth of today will not be coming to church tomorrow. Nationwide polls and denominational reports are showing that the next generation is calling it quits on the traditional church. And it’s not just happening on the nominal fringe; it’s happening at the core of the faith.
+ Only 11 percent of those who have left the Church did so during the college years. Almost 90 percent of them were lost in middle school and high school. By the time they got to college they were already gone! About 40 percent are leaving the Church during elementary and middle school years! [emphasis mine]
+ If you look around in your church today, two-thirds of those who are sitting among us have already left in their hearts; it will only take a couple years before their bodies are absent as well.
+ The numbers indicate that Sunday school actually didn’t do anything to help them develop a Christian worldview…The brutal conclusion is that, on the whole, the Sunday school programs of today are statistical failures.
+ Part of the concern is that the mere existence of youth ministry and Sunday school allows parents to shrug off their responsibility as the primary teachers, mentors, and pastors to their family.

The clergy at St. Paul’s (all two of us) have been talking over the past couple of years about ministry to younger people – Jr. High age and up through college age. One conclusion that we’ve come to is that the problem will not be solved programatically. A vast array of new programs will not solve the basic problem – the giving up by parents of their responsibility to impart the faith to a new generation. We see that most parents are not engaged in their own kids’ spiritual upbringing and Christian discipleship. There are notable exceptions, but sadly not many. The question is, “Why?”
In many ways, over the last 30 odd years we have witnessed the same thing happening with religious education as has happened with secular education – parents have given their children over to institutions to be raised and educated. When I was teaching high school and working with college students, there were constant complaints that parents now expect the schools to teach their kids everything from math to self-disciple. Parents, for whatever reason, relinquished their responsibility in many ways for raising their own children. This has happened with the religious education of children as well.
The Church can’t do it! We can provide opportunities to augment what is done in the home, but if parents expect “raising children in the way they should go” to be the Church’s responsibility and having little to do with them and what they do in the home, then they are frankly crazy and spiritually irresponsible. Parents are the primary disciplers and religious teachers. If they expect Christian education/formation to occur in a one hour Sunday School session and perhaps another hour of formal worship, it won’t happen! As a matter of fact, what the kids hear (if they pay attention) in church or Sunday School makes little difference if they see something very different occurring in the home. If parents proclaim to be good Christians and act as does the world contrary to the Life in Christ, then their children will simply cry, “Hypocrite.” I don’t blame kids for leaving the “faith” when the example is so bad and they see little or nothing of their own parents’ faith in action.
The problem is that so many parents don’t even know or understand their own faith, let alone how to pass on the faith to their children. Many parents place very little importance on the spiritual education of their children, sadly. Music lessons and football practices are more important then their kids’ Christian formation. Church leaders let it happen because the consequences of not showing up for youth group, etc., are non-existent.
Would a coach of the football team allow a team member to play games when the member rarely shows up for practice? No, of course not. Yet, the church places no high expectation on our young people because we are so afraid of driving them away or insulting them or making them feel bad about themselves. Or, we really don’t think that the formation of our young people is really all that important! Yet, these kinds of responses are actually what cause younger people to have little respect for the Church or to not take Christianity seriously. If their relationship with God is truly important, then the standards and exceptions need to be quite high (along with the support to teach and enable them to meet the high standards and know God through Jesus Christ).
We deal with our young people as if they really aren’t important. We speak down to them. We won’t deal with their honest questions and concerns because… well, I think we are afraid to because they make US uncomfortable or appear stupid or hypocritical. For parents, I think they don’t engage with their kids’ spiritual lives because they themselves don’t know or are such hypocrites that they won’t engage out of embarrassment. Maybe not, but that’s what I see all too often.
I think one of the most important things the Church can do for the successful formation of younger people is to make sure parents know their own faith and how to pass it onto their kids. We need to provide opportunities to stress and inform/train parents how to disciple their own children and provide support for them to do so. Successfully passing on the faith to the next generation must, must, must begin in the home!
We could make Sunday School not for kids, but for parents to learn how to disciple their own children through everyday life with constancy and intention.