Sully Notes Special | 13 Marks of a Faithful Missional Church – Mark 11 of 13

 

Mark 11 – A Church with Parents Trained to Take Up the Task of Nurturing Children in Faith – of 13 Marks of a Faithful Missional Church in the 21st Century American West  

Sully Notes are meant to provide you with direct quotes from some books I've read in the last year, so you can get a taste of the overall theme of the book and then begin to chew on what your life might look like if you applied what you read.

This series of special Notes are touching on a subject growing in recognition and discussion within the 21st century American church. What is the missional church? Is it something we do or who we are? What does a church look like that is living out the mission of God in their cultural context? How does a church remain faithful to the good news of Jesus, the Spirit of God, the Scriptures, the church throughout human history and around the world, and the mission of God that the church is called to join, while also meeting the questions, needs, and desires of the people God is sending us to in the cultures and contexts we live in today? I have found no better book to answer these questions than in Michael Goheen's A Light to the Nations: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story. 

For these 13 posts, my goal is to share the final chapter of the book – Chapter 9: What Might This Look Like Today – with you. In this chapter, Goheen shares from his pastoral and professional experience in answering the question, "Ten Things I'd Do Differently if I Pastored Again." The list grew from ten to a lucky thirteen. I think all thirteen are essential for considering how Emmaus City will be a faithful church for our city – Worcester, MA. 

Each blog post will feature one mark that will take about 5 minutes to read. Here is the full list featuring links to the previous posts:

• Mark 1: A Church with Worship That Nurtures Our Missional Identity
• Mark 2: A Church Empowered by the Preaching of the Gospel
• Mark 3: A Church Devoted to Communal Prayer
• Mark 4: A Church Striving to Live as a Contrast Community
• Mark 5: A Church That Understands Its Cultural Context
• Mark 6: A Church Trained for a Missionary Encounter in Its Callings in the World
• Mark 7: A Church Trained to Evangelism in an Organic Way
• Mark 8: A Church Deeply Involved in the Needs of Its Neighborhood and World
• Mark 9: A Church Committed to Missions
• Mark 10: A Church with Well-Trained Leaders
• Mark 11: A Church with Parents Trained to Take Up the Task of Nurturing Children in Faith
• Mark 12: A Church with Missional Communities That Nurture for Mission in the World
• Mark 13: A Church That Seeks and Expresses the Unity of the Body of Christ

Mark 11: A Church with Parents Trained to Take Up the Task of Nurturing Children in Faith

"Deuteronomy warns against two threats to the people of God that would prohibit them from becoming a light to the nations:

1) idolatry and

2) failure to pass along the faith to the next generation.

The alarming statistics that indicate the rapid exodus of the younger generation from the Western church highlights these warnings. The remarkable power of technology to shape worldview along with the enormous amount of time young people spend with its many forms makes the small amount of time they spend in Christian nurture seem almost negligible by comparison. The best preaching, worship, and education programs of a church simply cannot compete with television, movies, the internet, cell phones, Facebook, Twitter, and the ever-expanding list of technologies that shape our vision of the world. If families are not taught to make radical, costly, and time-consuming commitments to nurturing their children, the future of the church as a missional community in the West will be bleak.

I remember trembling at the baptism of my oldest two children as a I felt the enormous weight of my responsibility to enable them to know the promises, the commands, and the warnings of the covenant in Deuteronomy 11 and 30. At that time my wife and I committed to taking steps that were needed to be faithful in this calling.

1) Committing to family worship: We started this early, and none of our children can remember a time when we didn't have family worship as central to our evenings. We set aside an hour to an hour and a half for family worship five nights a week (Monday through Thursday and Saturday). It was important to set a time and a commitment to guard it against other intrusions. It mean starting other meetings later and not planning other evening events. During this time we taught our children the true story of the world in the Scripture, using books and methods appropriate to their ages. We spent time in singing and praying together. We memorized and discussed sections of Our World Belongs to God. We talked about and prayed for the church around the world. I would regularly take each of my children on my knee and pray for her or him. All of this made family worship one of our favorite times of the day.

2) Shaping education: Early in our family life we realized that a gospel of the kingdom was meant to shape all of life. Those who confess the Name of Christ are called to develop learning and teaching which is based on the Word of God. Recognizing Christ's creation-wide redemption, Christians will produce fresh and new approaches in education. Probably second to technology, education will be the primary way that the next generation will be nourished into a story and way of seeing and living in the world. So the choices we make have far-reaching implications. Education today – including public, Christian, and home education – is too often committed to serving the gods of economic utility, consumerism, multiculturalism, and technology. Commitment to finding ways to educate our children in a way that sees Jesus as Lord of all of life is not an option but rather a deep responsibility. It will require an intentionality and sacrifice that can be sustained only when we realize the importance of this task.

3) Discerning use of technology: No doubt the powerful forms of technology of the twenty-first century are shaping the next generation's view of the world more than anything else. When new technologies were introduced into our home, we discussed them together: What will this give and what will this take away? What are its benefits and dangers? We can record some success and some failures. Nevertheless, there must be an intentional plan to discuss these issues to help our children learn to use technology wisely.

4) Understanding our cultural context: It is essential to understand the spiritual currents shaping our culture. This can be done with younger children by teaching them to be thoughtful with advertising, perhaps the most powerful prophet of consumer religion. With television, we had our children observe a simple rule after each commercial. We all asked: 'Who do you think you're kidding?' We found that reflecting on culture can best come through discussions of technology, movies, music, and current events. Opportunities abound; it requires only parents sensitive to these openings, willing to grow themselves and engage their children.

5) Enabling children to become members of the body of Christ: Children can be excluded in too many ways from the worship and life of local congregations. Church leaders must find ways to incorporate children, but parents have the primary responsibility. We took time before the service to discuss the various elements to equip and teach our children how to worship. My wife speaks of 'parenting in the pew,' intentional work to enable our children to participate in corporate worship. Many things could be mentioned, but sermon notebooks were a great way to encourage our children to listen to sermons. Before they were able to write, they would draw pictures of what they had heard.

  
These are only some of the ways that families must take up their responsibility to nurture their children into the story of Bible. It will take prayer, time, commitment, and sacrifice, but what will it profit parents if they gain the whole world and lose their children? The congregation must find ways to equip parents for this difficult task." – pgs. 221-223

Next posts: 

• 13 Marks of a Faithful Missional Church – Mark 12 of 13: A Church with Missional Communities That Nurture for Mission in the World
• Sully Notes Special | Baptism: The Water that Unites Part 1 of 2

– Sully

 
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