Real talk. I’m struggling with the idea that local churches are becoming extinct. When I was young, there was one thing that you could count on in my community. Church would start service at 10 am Sunday morning and the liquor store across the street an hour later. Thank God for the buffer!! But what happens when patrons stop entering the church doors and pastors are forced to close them and join everyone else for online service instead? Where do the children go? How do they exercise their silent demons?
I remember there was a boy that sat in the church pew behind me when I was a child. He kept his coat on never really comfortable to be there. But his grandmother dragged him to Sunday morning service every week anyway. He didn’t speak. Just sort of scowled with his eyes to the floor. I overheard the adults saying that he watched his mother’s boyfriend kill her. I think the kid I remembered as David was about my age. I was probably thirteen then.
I can’t tell you what happened to David. I don’t know. But I like to think that all the time he spent in church, he was able to go on to live a productive life. That God cured him of his pain and anger and he found a nice wife and they had a couple of kids. That is why we send our children to church, right? So that somehow we can give them a leg up on a life guided by a spiritual connection with Christ? Well, what happens when we replace in-person church with an online experience for ourselves and our preteens are in their bedrooms having their own non-church whatever?
I have to say, I’m struggling to reconcile that the rise in mental health issues in children, the suicidal youth epidemic and no-end-in sight mass shootings carried out by the barely legal have nothing to do with the decline in local churches. I’d be lying if I told you that grandmothers no longer dragging their rebellious grandchildren to service despite their gripes doesn’t scare the crap out of me. Because it does.
I believe David’s grandmother dragging him to church every week was her way of righting how the world wronged David. She knew that he would probably one day be faced with the sins committed around him and she was giving him the only fighting chance she could. That was over 25 years ago. When churches were the balm for quite a few things that ailed the community. But what’s curing us now? Local churches are closing and the liquor stores still open on time. If we are leaving the responsibility of our children’s education to struggling school systems without parental supplement, it goes without saying that their spiritual growth is probably also going malnourished. Is the extent of their biblical knowledge the Lord’s prayer and is that enough for them to cling onto when they are faced with literally life or death situations? Is convenience the sin we are committing today and how will our children pay for what has become so very costly?
When I think about the sins of my own parents, there are definitely a few that have impacted me over the years. But I have to say I think about two very special gifts they gave me all the more. The first are the many prayers on which I am living. There is no doubt am still living on the prayers of those who came before me. They certainly knew I would need it. But secondly, like David’s grandmother, my father dragged his rebellious teenagers to church every week. And I can’t credit anyone or anything else more for the reason my children are now living on prayers of my own for them.
Even still, I often find myself wondering, now that the church pew that I sat on many years ago has today been replaced with my living room sofa and the seats next to me are empty, will my own grandchildren have a fighting chance when faced with their own challenges? In Jeremiah 31:30 God says, “But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.” So while, it is true that Jesus died for all our sins and our children will not be responsible to repay the sins of their parents but will be accountable for their own actions, the word of God also gives us, their parents, the responsibility to train them in the way they shall go so that when they are old they will not depart from it (Prov 22:6). So as I sit here preaching to myself, next week, I swear, I mean I think we are going back to church if only for them.
As his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation (Luke 1:50), I figure I owe it to my children, their children and their children’s children. And let’s face it, while the world is defining what their own personal church experience looks like, there is no substitute for a personal relationship with the Father. It's a legacy undoubtedly worthy of the pursuits even if it means getting out of your comfy clothes to gather the kiddos to join a three dimensional congregation if only for part of the time.
Image Credit: Twitter, Jamie Steinberg @NotYerAvgChick
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