Tuesday, April 15, 2014
I am being challenged tonight by this blog post I came across on the Agape blog (originally posted here). As a person who is often in charge of "programs" for the church, I feel like I need to read and re-read this and figure out my weaknesses and how to course-correct.
It's not enough to read this post. It is imperative that we examine our services in light of these truths. I am often warned that our church is too judgmental and that this is why some youth leave. But I feel like the reality is much more complicated. I am tired of trying to "figure out" the problem, and I feel like this post can serve as a road map for where to go from here.
Some of the points that really resonated with me...
- “When the ship is in the ocean, everything’s fine. When the ocean gets into the ship, you’re in trouble.”
- They’ve never sat on a pew between a set of new parents with a fussy baby and a senior citizen on an oxygen tank. They don’t see the full timeline of the gospel for every season of life.
- Rather than dumbing down the message, the agnostics and atheists treat our youth as intelligent and challenge their intellect with “deep thoughts” of question and doubt. Many of these “doubts” have been answered, in great depth, over the centuries of our faith.
- You’ve tried your best to pass along the internal/subjective faith that you “feel”. You really, really, really want them to “feel” it too. But we’ve never been called to evangelize our feelings.
- We’re failing. We’ve failed God and we’ve failed our kids. Don’t let another kid walk out the door without being confronted with the full weight of the law, and the full freedom in the gospel.
Ouch.
Though I really want this Holy Week to be about me, working out my salvation in fear and trembling, as a church servant, I can't help but think of those I am responsible for.
It's easy for me to pass the faith on to my daughter. Every moment is a teachable one. I can show her how faith is lived. But for some reason, I truly coddle other people/other people's kids in order to keep the peace. I am afraid to appear uncool or harsh or scare them away with the truth. Which, of course, backfires terribly. I'll be thinking this post through for weeks...
P.S. This too has me concerned...
Curiously, just a few days ago, I learned a number of converts had been baptized in the nearby (relatively) "American" Coptic church. Although the church has quite the assortment of seemingly "relevant" characteristics, a friend mentioned to me nearly a year ago how worried she was at Abouna's tendencies to bring the harshest messages first--the harder rules we are called to follow that many people would rather not do. Apparently such messages did not dissuade them :)
ReplyDeleteI think people need to know right up front. If you're looking for an easy, warm-fuzzy church, we're really not it. Not that there's no warmth, of course, but that our faith is hard work... Like a marriage is hard work. Not unpleasant--but real. You can't phone this in. At least, that's how I see it.
DeleteThere are a number of Orthodox churches whose membership look a lot like me (nth generation American). "Young people" are seeing through the big box churches and looking for something real. It's why Adoration among Catholic young people is so high as are Latin Mass attendance and the number of Anglo young people becoming Orthodox. There was even a book published about it about 10 years ago called "The New Faithful" by Colleen Carroll.
ReplyDeleteThere's a talk by Fr. Robert Barron that might interest you and might be applicable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRzDBro3FiE&
This is true, Jen. I just want to make sure that those young people come for the right reasons and stay for the right reasons (namely, they actually believe/agree with our faith). I don't want people coming to our church because "oh cool, you have incense" new-age experience-type-reason. That's the reason some young people turned to Islam after 9/11... "oh cool, clear religious rules"... "Oh cool" should have nothing to do with a final reason to do anything that concerns your eternity, hahaha... Because the sparkle of new experience, the blush of first love, fades... and then you get real. I will definitely check out that talk!
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