Face up to these five realities of church life today

It is one thing to acknowledge reality, it is another to say this is ok. It is not OK that people are “too busy” today for church and fellowship. It is not OK that people will drive 200 miles to take their kid to a soccer match, but won’t take them to church. What concerns me is the “practical atheism” we seem to be drifting towards in the church in the US.

On the flip side, single’s ministry drying up is not, per se, a big deal.

I think we need to take a look at how our tactics are working with today’s people. Reality is that Sunday School was originally a way to teach the poor to read—it has no clear roots in the New Testament—and age segregated ministry, including singles ministry and adult Sunday School, grew out of that. It’s pretty much adiaphora—not specified or rejected by Scripture—and then we need to ask whether this model is relevant to people today.

One specific difference between the time many of our pastors (mine is about 60) were growing up and today is that in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a lot more acceptance of “authority for the sake of authority”, and there was also a sense (you can see this in old National Geographics) that we should go to church because the Godless Commies could not. So taking a good look at where our current formats more or less assume this (whether or not we realize it) might be a good start to getting the “right hooks into the water”.

Don’t get me wrong; I love Sunday School and am in fact my church’s superintendent for kids between 3 and 12. I just think we need to keep an eye on what we’re doing so we don’t end up doing “duck and cover” drills with a generation that doesn’t remember the USSR, so to speak.