Rethinking…

I confess.  In my four years of Bible College and then my Seminary studies, I never took one class on discipleship.  Don’t misunderstand…I took lots of classes on books of the Bible, personal evangelism, principles of classroom teaching, church leadership, church history, counseling classes, and many classes on how to formulate and deliver sermons.  In all of these classes we used words like “discipleship” and “making disciples”, but discipleship always seemed to be a vague theory that was simply left up to the individual to figure out.  Yes, there are books that are written to teach you the spiritual disciplines that you need to develop to become a disciple.  There are routines that you can learn to grow in your walk with Jesus and there are principles that teach you how to have a Biblical worldview.  All of these are great tools…but none of them equate to a Jesus model of discipleship.

Sunday school has often been considered the “discipleship model” for traditional churches.  Children who grew up in the church would spend their formative years learning the stories of the Bible, memorize scripture, and then often would go through a “confirmation class” at a certain age which was then followed up with baptism and maybe even church membership.  Boxes were checked, parents were proud, and the children then moved into the youth group to play dodgeball and disgusting food games.  Next step was to head off to college where, according to statistics, 66% of them stop attending church.  As adults, some of them return to repeat the model with their children.

Two weeks ago, in my Through the Lens article Connecting the Dots, I said that we need to start asking hard questions about why and what we are doing?  Today, I want to focus specifically on the area of discipling our children.

When I became a father the responsibility of raising my children in the Lord was an overwhelming task.  While I had my Pastoral Studies degree with a minor in Biblical Studies, the reality is that I had no idea how to lead my family in discipleship.  I could put together a youth retreat, mission trip, or a great week of camp messages, but to sit down with my child and teach them…everyone just ASSUMED that I could do that.  Sure, we read them Bible stories every night and tried to model for them a loving home that was filled with grace.  But I had no plan, no model, and no experience in what discipleship looked like from a family view.  I always felt “less than” because I never measured up to what I felt the parenting books and the old ladies at church thought I should be doing.  My kids were in Sunday school every week, memorized their AWANA verses, and eventually attended youth group when they came of age.  All the while, I felt like I was never doing enough.

The traditional view of Sunday school in the Midwest is to get to church early, drop your kids off at the kid’s classes, parents go to their class (or out to breakfast) and at the end of the day get the profound answer of “Jesus” when they ask their kids what they learned about in Sunday school.  They may receive a craft project that gets thrown away before the day is over or a coloring sheet to hang on the fridge that the teacher used to fill the last 10 minutes of the class period.  If there was a take home sheet, it may get looked at, but most likely tossed into the trash and the lesson forgotten by Tuesday morning.  The Sunday school teacher often goes home wondering if they are making a difference, ready to quit this ministry they have been stuck in for the last ten years and wondering if there is a simple lesson that will keep the kids busy and more attentive next week.

Is this what Jesus meant when he said to make disciples?  No wonder American families want to go play soccer or baseball on Sundays, because what we have been doing through the years is not making that big of an impact on their lives.

I don’t say this to criticize people.  I’ve been there as a parent, and I’ve been there as a Sunday school teacher.  Thank you to everyone who has invested time, prayers, and even tears in teaching the children through the years.  The problem isn’t the teacher or the parent, the problem is the system.

Here are a few symptoms I recognize from generations of failed Sunday school systems.

1. We have adults who don’t know the basic stories of the Bible, let alone where they fit and how they tie into the overall story of redemption.
2. Because they don’t know the stories, they don’t know how to interact with their children about what they have learned in Sunday school class.
3. Because the children are only attending a “one hour” lesson on Sunday morning they have no follow up with their parents on how to remember or apply what they were taught in their class.
4. Because there is no follow up, there is often times no intentional plan to help parents work with their children through the remainder of the week.
5. Because teachers are spending more time trying to “manage a classroom” than they are actually teaches the children about Jesus, they often burn out and don’t want to teach anymore.

So that has me thinking…

What if “Sunday school” was a Discipleship Hour where families learned together?  What if it looked like this?

1. Adults read and study the story in preparation for Discipleship Hour to discuss with their children and have the tools to see how every story in the Bible points to Jesus, where it fits in the chronological history, and how it helps fulfill God’s ultimate redemptive plan for man in the future.
2. What if parents were equipped and given space to interact with their children during Discipleship Hour as they learned to worship, study, and discover together how the stories apply to them as a family?
3. What if the Sunday morning discussion could be followed up throughout the week with questions that the kids and parents discussed and are now seeing how they apply in everyday situations?
4. What if parents were able to see the big picture and have a plan to not only teach their children, but also learn the fulness of God’s redemptive story so that the Bible made sense from Genesis to Revelation?
5. What if instead of one teacher trying to control a classroom of ten children, whole families were together to learn in family units.

I think that it would be pretty radical.  I think that it might help a few more men learn how to raise their children.  I think that it may have an impact on family’s desire to be in church and Discipleship Hour.  I think that it could transform marriages, families, churches, and communities.

What do you think?

Pastor Dwight