DO SOMETHING FOR THE KIDS

Several years ago, Bishop Watson from the South Georgia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church preached a sermon as part of an evangelistic event. He related the time a somewhat tipsy man at a baseball game found out he was a preacher and gave him $100 and told him, "Do something for the kids." About half-way through the game, the man leaned back over to Bishop Watson and said, "You are really a preacher, aren't you?" After being assured that he hadn't just given $100 away for nothing, the man breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Then make sure you do something for the kids."

I don't remember anything else about that sermon, but that story stuck in my mind. According to surveys by George Barna:

"Nearly half (43 percent) of all Americans who accept Jesus Christ as their savior do so before reaching the age of 13. Two out of three born again Christians (64 percent) accept Jesus Christ as their savior before their 18th birthday. One out of eight born again people (13 percent) made their profession of faith while 18 to 21 years old."

This tells me that we -- as Christians and as Christian communities -- should be putting the majority of our time and energy into our children and youth. However, this is not usually the case. In my experience, especially with smaller churches, we just don't do enough to reach out to the children and youth outside of Vacation Bible School. When we do talk about outreaches to children and youth, then we are usually using them as a way to get to the parents. In other words, the children and youth are not the target of our programs -- their parents are.

But, the survey by Barna and our own experiences in church show that if we do not reach our children and youth at an early age, then they may never make a commitment to Christ in their life. Our kids are under extreme anti-Christian and anti-family pressures in their lives -- at school, on the playground, on television and movies, with their peers, and in the extracurricular activities offered to them. If we want to see the kingdom of Christ advanced in this country, then we have to reach out to these kids and show them the love of Christ. We have to show them the alternative to the liberal, secularistic, and immoral society in which they find themselves.

A recent news article ("Mainline church decline caused by fertility rates")has come out announcing that the decrease in primarily liberal mainline denominations and the increase in primarily conservative evangelical denominations and churches has more to do with birth control and the number of children being born to members than anything else. But, perhaps, it has to do with which groups are reaching out to their children, loving them where they are and introducing them to the true God of the Bible.

Abraham Lincoln once said that the philosophy of the schoolyard in one generation will be the philosophy of the nation in the next. We have been reaping this philosophical change from the generations of the 60's and early 70's for several years now, and have been noting declines in our church membership, especially in the membership of people aged 18-30.

I have hope because I have seen how the Spirit of God is working through the contemporary Christian music and worship scene in our teens and college kids, and I have been blessed through participation in the Chrysalis Flight and Journey movements (the teen and college-aged version of the Walk to Emmaus). God is moving through this generation and reaching out to them where we haven't. The question before us then is "when will we start doing something for the kids?"