5 Reasons Teens Are Avoiding Church

5 Reasons Teens Are Avoiding Church


Please read the above article, it is very interesting. Soapbox Alert! We have needed to fill some spots in teaching Sunday School this year. Mostly in the 4th and 5th grade class. We have made it as easy as we possibly can...teaching in a rotation, 3 weeks on and 6 weeks off. The more teachers we have, the longer time between teaching comittments. We sent out about 12 requests to parents, and past teachers, newly retired, those who God put before Beckie and I as we thought about who would be good to ask...we recieved 2 who said yes. Now, if you are one who received an email, this is not a personal attack....but I am hoping there will be a "big picture" moment here for all of us. The reasons we received for why people couldn't teach, bears out this article...if Sunday Scool isn't relevant to the parents and the church, then how can it be relevant to their children?

As the Church, we continue to find that our voice is slipping away in a world filled with many. Church - how important is it To YOU that your chlidren know the story of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ? If is isn't important to you, than why are we still doing this thing called Sunday morning? We have to about more than ourselves. We have to rise to the call that God gave us in Jesus...Go and make disciples...that means you AND me...see you Sunday..

Looking Up

I don't know if it because of the weather patterns we have been in or it is the season of Summer when we are angled just right to the sun, but have you noticed the skies lately. For the past several weeks, I have found my eye and my mind captured by the beautiful sky around us. Some days I can see Monet or Renoir's impressionist clouds that have little definition and purple haze at the bottom. Other days the clouds tower and are sharp and infocus like the oils of the famous outdoor artists that painted the unsettled western US two centuries ago. And the sunsets are always amazing shows this time of year.

As I take note of the skies, I also find my mind wanders to the hand of God that paints on this canvas. There is all kinds of science about why the clouds tower and why they are flat, high pressures and low...but what about the artist that designed the highs and lows to be able to communicate such beauty to us? Are they meant to inspire us, or is it all just random science, a process set in motion eons ago that continues on today. And I know that if God's hand is at work in the beauty then it follows God is at work in the storms too, and that gets complicated.

Mom had a storm last week that took out some of the oldest trees on our little hilltop. A 100 yr old Catalpa tree and a 100 yr old Oak tree. Beautiful old friends that hold many memories of tree climbs and who offered strong limbs to hold block and tackle for engines and shade for horse and rider. It is painful to watch them die slowly as the wounds from the storm will overcome the entire tree and not just the limbs that have broken off. Truly the landscape has changed.

But my faith tells me God is at work in all things...the beauty and the loss, and the calm and the storms. Is the witness simply that he is with us, when the wind is howling and the limbs are twisting beyond the physical capabilites as well as when the beauty causes us to catch our breath and pause for a moment. God whispers in both moments..."I am with you." It is that whisper that gets me through the final cutting down of the trees and the tears shed for lost friends and family...it is that whisper that allows me to look up and know I don't go it alone. Look up and be amazed by that grace.