Families and Ministries

Instead of starting a new blog, I'll just collect my thoughts on this one as I work through some of this Family-based, Family-equipping, and Family-integrated ministry stuff.  I am having to do some work for a class I am in, and in turn, because my job is in this very area, it is an appropriate time to assess where we are and where we need to go. 

The three people who write in "Perspectives on Family Ministry" are of diverse opinion as to what is responsible for a decline in the faith-retention rates of American teenagers as they go to college and subsequently leave the church.  Many theories have been floated as to why this phenomenon occurs.  Many family-integrated specialists blame the entire concept of youth ministry and age-segregated ministry.  Many people blame the lack of worldview training in youth programs, believing that tepid teaching for years on the age-specific struggles of youth leave them groundless in their faith when they encounter the real world in college.  Some people believe it is a lack of parental involvement around the house, that many kids grow up seeing an anemic faith in father and mother and adopt it wholeheartedly.  Others have blamed public schools, public universities, and believe cultural influences are too strong for teenagers to resist in the formative years leading up to adulthood. 

It is probably safe to say that some of these issues are correlative to the poor retention rates of American teenagers as they grow into adulthood.  Some of these issues are probably symptoms, however, and not real causes for the sad state of things.  There are probably issues that nobody has dealt with that are just as responsible as some of the ones mentioned here.  Some of the issues only exist as a subset of larger cultural problems in America.  In the American Church's self-reflection of itself, the fact that we are talking about retention rates as if something is broken with our Student Ministries and not wondering if something is broken with our entire ministry paradigm in general.  Maybe we are not retaining 80% of graduating seniors, because only 20% of the children we baptize are regenerate.  Maybe half of that 80% return after they are out of college and have their own families, and live out the remainder of their life in our churches still in an unregenerate state.  Perhaps the real problem is that nearly 80% of our church members are unregenerate, and the only phase of life where the social scorn of church abandonment is socially acceptable is during the college and young adult years.  By the time they have rejoined, no heart work has been done on these people.  They just play the social game and realize church attendance is beneficial again.  These would be larger problems with our churches that would not be solved by having or not having age-segregated ministries.  They are problems with Gospel implementation.

Let's be honest here, we don't expect mainstream, liberal Protestant denominations to keep their members after they leave mommy and daddy's house.  We expect them to trade that gospel-lite therapeutic inoculation for some real living.  Whether that is talking philosophy over a beer at the local nihilist's club or sleeping around in unrestricted debauchery, we don't think that explains a failure in the form of Student Ministry.  Age-segregated ministry had nothing to do with that downgrade, gospel-absence had everything to do with it.  It's more surprising when it happens in the Southern Baptist denomination.  And then again, it shouldn't be.  Let's be honest once again.  Cheap grace decision-based moralism is still a counterfeit Gospel.  We shouldn't be surprised when they trade the sappy life of rural Southern religion for the campus-centered lifestyle of college.  We also should not be astounded when a youth-dominated culture produces youth who act like delayed adolescence is a more authentic form of living over the adult version of life. 

My point is, we have too many factors going against us to blame 100% of our failures on a functional issue like the age-segregated ministry structures.  Our wood sailing ship won't move, is taking on water, coated in gasoline, the kids are playing with fireworks, faulty electrical systems are sparking everywhere, there are sharks in the water, and right now we are going to have a board meeting to determine what sail material to use next time we take the old girl out to sea?  A pertinent matter no doubt, but not the only kink in the system.  We do need to critique ministry structures, but not at the expense of talking about other shoals that we can wreck on that need to be examined as well.  You cannot fix everything at once, and you cannot fix every problem without leaving others undone. 

Losing Salvation?

1. What can you do to lose your salvation? (keep in mind these are hypothetical questions as far as I'm concerned as I don't believe one can 'lose' salvation)

If a Christian can lose their salvation, I imagine it is through some act, mental or physical, that transmutes one from salvation back into damnation. Nobody believes God capriciously revokes salvation to obedient and believing Christians. Usually it is a Christian who has stopped believing or in more severe theologies a Christian who has sinned too much. This begs deeper questions:

What are we saved from? If we are saved from the penalty of our sins through faith in Jesus Christ it would seem a bit odd that such sins would then be the means of revoking our salvation. Perhaps we are only forgiven of past sins until salvation, but after we enter that relationship we become bound to sin only a certain number of times before that forgiveness turns into wrath again. It would ask again, what is it we are saved from in such a scheme? Salvation is not salvation if we've got to pay it off once we've leased it from God by obedience.

As for the Christian who has stopped believing we also ask some questions on top of this. What did they believe, and with what do they believe? We surely don't want to think every act of belief is what the Bible calls faith that justifies. If someone assents to the existence of God and Christ and then suspends that assent at some point later in life, surely we would question not their final salvation only, but their initial salvation. Was the first state of faith the Biblical definition we see in Scripture that"God will work good for a person no matter what and save them ultimately in the day of judgment by the redemption in Christ." Now what if a person were to hold that doctrine and then leave it in the sense of "God surely could work good for a person, but I don't think he is working good for me." The misfire in faith is not about the Giver but about the receiver in this sense. Damnable low self-esteem? Or is God better to this person even than their own self-receptiveness could imagine? We are in gray space here, but I'll wager an idea just for the sheer fun of it.
Justifying faith is imperfect. Were it required that it be perfect, none would be saved. Even weak faith saves. Even a mustard seed of it throws the mountain gurgling into the sea. Because faith is not the savior, the Object of faith is what saves. So if the faith is in God, even a temporary lapse of faith would not be the justifying agent in the equation. I could be wrong, and we could debates texts and passages, but I'm thinking out loud right now.

So what can you do to lose your salvation? Fail to receive it initially is all I can see. Can a person outsin grace? Can a person believe too weakly in God that He is able to save? We know they can believe amiss, but too timidly? I don't know that I'd go there from here. A new scheme of justification would have to be adapted to for me to connect the dots that way. And I'm not moving there as of now.

Reowful

myn reowful corridges looke upon and pardon myn Lorde

Can you lose your salvation?

If as a Christian, one can lose their salvation, it begs a few questions:
1) What can you do to lose it?
2) What can you do to regain it (if you can)?
3) How can you be sure not to lose it?
4) How hard is it to lose your salvation?
5) What is God's attitude towards those who lose their salvation?

It's a New Year

Got to get over the old one. I didn't like 2011. It was really great. It just wasn't well done. Too much was performed on the fly rather than the usual ponderous, well-planned pace I like.

Resolutions (quickly):
Health (diet, exercise, stress level) improved
Cleaner (less mess, well-dressed, organized)
Less internet, better internet (less news, more writing, less mindless reading)
More study (less reading, more study)