Church Words
Yesterday the Parkway Student Ministry “Brain Trust” got together to discuss highly complicated matters. So much so that I relent even attempting to write about the meeting. I fear that no mere mortal can decipher our combined intellect in any meaningful way. Yes, it is true, we are crazy awesome. Our crazy awesomeness only seconded by our ostentatious humility.
Um, that was fun, now I am finished and shall move on to what I wish to write about. The meeting yesterday, which really means very little to you if you are not, in fact, reading this today, so from this point forward I will say simply the meeting. So, there was a meeting at a point in the past. A few college aged type folks sat in a room; around a table looking in the general direction of a dry erase board. Between the table and the board stood me, my name is Kevin.
At this meeting we discussed why we seem to lose so many of the twenty something demographic in the Church (Church as opposed to church, meaning bigger than Parkway). What happens between nineteen and thirty that cause such an epidemic of disengagement? We soon learned that there is no easy answer. People disengage for many reasons. Seams that some people just don’t care about church, others don’t care about God. Some want to party, and church and party don’t seem to go together. See what I mean, many number of reasons. All of those are out of the control of the church. But is there more, are we missing something?
As we talked we started coming up with words that helped us describe what we felt to be important characteristics of a church. For instance, many felt that a church should be real in an authentic sort of way. We started getting the hang of the exercise and came up with a list, we felt that important characteristics of church might be concepts such as: boldness, bravery/courage , organization, challenging, purposeful, driven, takes responsibility, serving, and deep. This is a broad list, and it might seem like an obvious list to some. But as we discussed this in more depth we discovered that it is very easy to under perform in these areas. In fact, sometimes a display of these characteristics can actually cause trouble in the church. Challenge someone in an area that they tend to display laziness, see what happens. It may just as easily mess up your day as improve it. We determined that it is far too easy to sit and be than it is to go and do.
Is this part of the problem, do we avoid disciplines that encourage the above list of characteristics? Do we too often follow the path of least resistance? Do, twenty something aged folks sense this and flee?
I cannot be certain that the path of least resistance is the problem, but it definitely causes one to question. Twenty something folks, for that matter even a large number of thirty some things, are missing from the church. Do we church types encourage laziness and comfort over sacrifice and effort. One does not need to read through much of the bible to see examples of the characteristics in the list. Read any one of the gospels and Acts you see Paul exhibit courage in life threatening situations on nearly a daily basis. Jesus. I really don’t need to say more. As Christians, we believe Jesus is God, and He came to live on earth for 33 years. If that was not crazy enough He came in an era without simple things like air conditioning and cars. Brother had to walk everywhere, in the heat! Um, let’s weigh the options; live in heaven, live in earth? Doesn’t seem like there should be too much debate.
But, we sit. Don’t push too hard, people will not come. Don’t push too hard, people will not stay. Don’t push too hard, people will not give. I don’t know, just some thoughts.
Um, that was fun, now I am finished and shall move on to what I wish to write about. The meeting yesterday, which really means very little to you if you are not, in fact, reading this today, so from this point forward I will say simply the meeting. So, there was a meeting at a point in the past. A few college aged type folks sat in a room; around a table looking in the general direction of a dry erase board. Between the table and the board stood me, my name is Kevin.
At this meeting we discussed why we seem to lose so many of the twenty something demographic in the Church (Church as opposed to church, meaning bigger than Parkway). What happens between nineteen and thirty that cause such an epidemic of disengagement? We soon learned that there is no easy answer. People disengage for many reasons. Seams that some people just don’t care about church, others don’t care about God. Some want to party, and church and party don’t seem to go together. See what I mean, many number of reasons. All of those are out of the control of the church. But is there more, are we missing something?
As we talked we started coming up with words that helped us describe what we felt to be important characteristics of a church. For instance, many felt that a church should be real in an authentic sort of way. We started getting the hang of the exercise and came up with a list, we felt that important characteristics of church might be concepts such as: boldness, bravery/courage , organization, challenging, purposeful, driven, takes responsibility, serving, and deep. This is a broad list, and it might seem like an obvious list to some. But as we discussed this in more depth we discovered that it is very easy to under perform in these areas. In fact, sometimes a display of these characteristics can actually cause trouble in the church. Challenge someone in an area that they tend to display laziness, see what happens. It may just as easily mess up your day as improve it. We determined that it is far too easy to sit and be than it is to go and do.
Is this part of the problem, do we avoid disciplines that encourage the above list of characteristics? Do we too often follow the path of least resistance? Do, twenty something aged folks sense this and flee?
I cannot be certain that the path of least resistance is the problem, but it definitely causes one to question. Twenty something folks, for that matter even a large number of thirty some things, are missing from the church. Do we church types encourage laziness and comfort over sacrifice and effort. One does not need to read through much of the bible to see examples of the characteristics in the list. Read any one of the gospels and Acts you see Paul exhibit courage in life threatening situations on nearly a daily basis. Jesus. I really don’t need to say more. As Christians, we believe Jesus is God, and He came to live on earth for 33 years. If that was not crazy enough He came in an era without simple things like air conditioning and cars. Brother had to walk everywhere, in the heat! Um, let’s weigh the options; live in heaven, live in earth? Doesn’t seem like there should be too much debate.
But, we sit. Don’t push too hard, people will not come. Don’t push too hard, people will not stay. Don’t push too hard, people will not give. I don’t know, just some thoughts.
posted by Kevin at
1:36 PM
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