As I was on vacation
visiting friends, we were looking at all the pictures of graduation...i mean
confirmation...and the father lamented over all the people in the neighborhood
who no longer went to church. His quip was, “If you want people to stop going
to church just take them through confirmation class.” This was, amazingly enough, quoted almost
verbatim by another person who walked up behind us a couple minutes later! It sounds a little harsh, but the truth hurts
and the reality, he was right. For as we
looked at picture after picture, at least 75% of the people on the wall no
longer went to a Lutheran Church!
He asked an interesting question, “What do we do?” Or maybe the better question is, where did we
go wrong? We can play Monday morning
quarterback and lament the past all we want but the reality is there is a lot
of things we can do right now. There are
solutions. There are other ways to
tackle the catechesis of our youth. BUT
I will speak a caution now before you get started, it is not a full-proof
one. I cannot guarantee success. For only where the word is rightly preached
does faith grow as Paul says in Romans 10:17.
Some ideas have been percolating in my mind and there are better recipes for success than engaging in insanity.
Stop the insanity. The definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and
over and expecting different results. How
often I have come across the older generations who say we don’t need to
change! This is how Confirmation has always
been done. (disastrously disastrously done might I add! And change? Lutherans
don’t change!) Yet what they really mean is done in their church, in their
lifetime. With that:
1. Every congregation starts with repentance. We have not lived as we ought and we have lived as though we matter the most. The congregation needs to repent of saying they are the most important. We have lived as if God does not matter most. Let us stop making excuses for junior or juniorette. They have sinned and they need the absolution just as much as we do. Parents need to be called to repent and stop leading their children into sin. Grandparents need to repent because their demands of doing it the way did it harm their very grandchildren! Jesus warns that it is better that a millstone be strung around our neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea, then to lead one of these little away from Christ (Matt 18:6). If we want to see a change in attitude in the congregation about catechesis it begins with each individual person confessing their sin and then parents admitting that they have not taught their children as they ought. Generation after generation have not diligently taught them to their children and the proof is in the pudding. The close of the commandments warns us clearly (Exodus 20:5-6; Deut. 5:28-6:9 to keep them before us lest our progeny grow up to despise the Lord. Indeed parents have taught their children who their god is, and it is not the true God. Search your heart and see what it is that you covet and have made your idol for it is out of our idolatrous heart that all sins comes! If you need examples peruse Matthew 15:18-19 or Galatians 5:19-21. Do you need to know what your 21st century gods are, just ask your pastor.
2. Next, stop calling it
confirmation. Call it catechesis. In so doing we recognize something very
different about the life of each saint, It is one in which each and every
person is being taught to echo the faith. (Luke 1:4) Additionally, if it is to echo the
faith, the echo continues so that as one gets older the echoing never stops but
it keeps getting deeper and richer for we are echoing that which has been
echoed to us from creation. Likewise calling it catechesis recognizes something
about the self. Since I am an echoer, I
need someone to echo. Thus I am a
disciple, a student in the faith, and therefore I need a teacher, and this is
what pastors and parents do, in fact, pastors are the catechist only because
they are “in loco parentis” (in the place of a parent) They do the work in the
place of the parent but only in so far as the parents give them authority!
Pastors have a person’s attention for such a limited time that the majority of
the work as catechist must fall to the parents!
Also by calling it catechesis we remove the element of decision theology
from the work of teaching our children the faith and thus also recognize that
our children truly do understand why they need when they are young because they
have been taught all good things and the great gift of the Lord’s Supper is a
gift for the forgiveness of sins.
3. Third, therefore, speaking of parents, we need to place the onus upon the parent. Parents, stop trying to get your children through a set of criteria to graduate with the pastor. Parents, stop trying to blame the pastor or the child. Parents, stop making excuses for your child. Nearly 100% of the time the reason the child is having issues in the midst of “formal” catechesis is because the parents don’t parent. Oh sure the parents teach, they teach their children what is most important by their very actions.
Luther gets the point across in the small catechism as he says of each heading, "As the head of the family should teach them in a simple way to his household." Luther doesn't mince words on this in the large catechism. (It’s a great read, check it out!) Fathers are the key. Let's look at the reality. As daddy says, so do the children follow. My wife must occasionally remind me, “watch what you say because your children will repeat (echo!) you. But it's not just what does daddy say but what does he do? Will the Father lead his children? If the father says and believes this is important he is going to set the example. And the example is clear, if the father goes to church every Sunday and attends Bible Study and leads his family in devotions, teaching his family that he is a sinner just like them in need of forgiveness and catechesis, so also will the children much more highly likely follow suit.
This does not mean mothers are not important, but the statistics are very clear on this. Father’s set the tone. Men, do your work. As Adam was created to be the head of the house, you also Lead the family in the way it shall go (Eph. 6:1-4; Prov. 1:8, Deut 4:9)! Mothers you do have an extremely important role they are daily with their children, nurturing and teaching them as they grow (Prov. 1:8). And above all women be wise who you choose to marry, these are the men who will lead your family. Dear woman, is the man you are dating now going to church? Then that is likely how he will continue to live once married. What about you whose husband doesn’t go? It is time to diligently pray and encourage your husband to do his husbandly job. Secondly, mothers remind your husband of their fatherly duties. Encourage your husband to come with you to church and set the example that his children see. Yes, this is what the holy union of husband and wife were created to be!
But, if you parents make
excuse after excuse: Johnny needs to be at this soccer game, Suzy needs to be
part of the travel team, then you will teach that the sport, the club, the
hunting is more important. And when parents teach this, we are but one tenuous
generation away from seeing the children of that family fall away forever. The reality is all parents teach, even bad
ones. The question is what are we parents going to teach? So if it on the parents to teach when should
we get started? Yesterday.
4. It is time to begin a much earlier catechesis, as soon as your child is ready. What greater realm of insanity is it then to think that the best time to start teaching our youth at 7th and 8th grade? This plan is ridiculously flawed especially in light of what goes on in our culture. We must see that the way our churches have been engaged in this work is flawed, and yet sadly I have heard many of our older generations say, “If it was good enough for me, it is good enough for our kids today.”
Is this really the best reason you can come up with? As an educator, I cannot think of a worse time to engage are youth for the first time in-depthly in the Lutheran, Christian faith. The pulls upon their life are enormous! The desire for something other than God pulls directly at them: sports, peers, grades, let alone do I mention hormones(!). These and so many more devilishly seek our children’s attention and thus create an idol for them. These children are much more moldable in their ways then we give them credit for. As one parent said of a meeting with the teacher in 2nd or 3rd grade, don’t worry, we don’t teach children sex education till the 4th grade. Let that conversation hang on your thoughts! We think that we don’t need to worry, our children will be ok if we just wait a couple years (or never) till we get over our own insecurities and uncomfortableness with the topics. We naively, ignorantly think the world will wait to teach our children sex education. (Let alone again, we forget that this is our job, not the governments!) And the reality is if you can get a hold of the health and P.E. standards they are teaching your children at much younger age about gender and sexuality: try from the very first year.
Are you going to give the world the responsibility of teaching your child or are you going to retake that responsibility? And the world hopes that you will let it. The devil and the world are hoping they are going to get the first crack at teaching your children, and that you will blindly think that your children won’t learn about this till they reach, by some randomly agreed upon age of your church of 12 or 13. Let’s give an extreme example, who in their right mind would just hand their child over to criminals to be taught? And yet that is what the devil is: an expert sinner.
We have seen for example in just over 60 years how the world has circumvented the church and taught against sexuality being a gift from God to husband and wife, to it doesn’t matter what letter of the alphabet you are as long as you love that person. It is time to begin a rigorous catechesis sooner, much sooner. As I have said, all parents teach. Children’s minds are sponges. As soon as your child can put a sentence together, it is time to start teaching the catechism.
Dear parents start teaching
it! Teach them the catechism, get it down in rote memory! Better yet, in family devotion, read to them
the Gospel accounts and the early church in Acts. Read to them about Adam and Eve, Abraham and
Sarah, Moses and Israel, David and the kings! Help them so that they are
committed to memory. In teaching them they desire what you have because you
teach them that what you have is important!
5. An overlooked important part of this is that it is time to give them all of God’s gifts much sooner! Do we believe what we teach? How often our little ones can confess more clearly about scripture than adults can. Teach a young child 8 or 9 years old the 10 commandments, how he breaks them, and who paid the price for them. Teach your daughter about confession and absolution and the Lord's Supper and then ask them. Why do they need these things? They will say because I have sinned and then they literally ask why can't I have the body and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of my sins. And what's your answer? Because you're not old enough, you just need to wait.
Really? Is that REALLY the
answer you want to give to this child who has confessed what they have done and
why they need this gift? You know deep down that this is the answer of
Satan. The devil wants our children to
not received Christ gifts and eat of Christ’s body and blood. If you don’t believe that, then ask yourself,
why do they walk away? You wonder why so many fall away and stop attending
after "confirmation." These youth reason, if it wasn’t important then
for me, it must not really be all that important now. Scripture teaches in 1
Corinthians 11 that they are to discern the body and blood of Christ. Are you
going to tell these young ones that their discerning isn't good enough? Indeed,
if that is the case, almost everyone in the congregation probably shouldn't
participate. Who determines when the
youth is ready? I return you back to
point 3! The parents, in consultation
with their pastor, make that determination.
The rest of the congregation needs to get out of the way and let this
happen, that takes us back to point 1!
6. None of these are fool-proof. The devil is continually seeking to lead people astray (Eph 6:11, 1 Pet 5:8). So when you look at the pictures on that wall in your church let us remember the battle is not done till the day death comes and our God delivers us from evil. Your children are baptized children of God. One for whom Christ died. Indeed, that is every single person in your community whether they are a member of your church or not. Do we write them off as though we tried? Do we give up? Not a chance!
So let us continue to confess the faith! Let us engage in evangelism. Literally, what does evangelism mean? Good News. These people all the more need to hear about who Christ is and what Christ chose to do for them. And what is the most "effective" way to do this? Now one would think that a strong evangelism program is what is needed. Or that we need to use technology better. Or if we just get the right pastor the church will grow by leaps and bounds. But all these make the church based on something else that when it disappears will lead the person to disappear.
The most effective tool of
evangelism is each individual member of the church, you who have continued to
hear. So where does it start? Invite,
invite, invite! Speak positively, glowingly about your church! Don't be afraid
of questions, but rather see them as your opportunity to be engaged in
catechesis. Admit there are things you don't know and that's ok! In realizing
that there is one new thing you don’t know, now you get to learn so that you may
then go out to the highways and byways and boldly echo this newly (re)learned
teaching! (For that is often what it is,
a relearned teaching that you had forgotten.)
7. In so doing we remember, we are all, always, children of God. We don't become adults in the faith but rather sons and daughters of the Church. How wonderful that we can be students, always learning, always growing. Youth listen and learn from your elderly members. Elderly members, listen and learn from your youth. Both bring a wealth of knowledge to the table. This is why the one room school house and the multi-grade classroom of today is so beneficial, they each learn from the other! In so doing, catechesis is a life-long part of the disciple. Thus we highlight for us why the people of the early church were called disciples. Disciples are students and thus always echoing their teacher. Let us learn to always echo the faith!
In conclusion, remember, these are by no means fail safe solutions. Certainly, no matter how excellent the parent is, no matter how good the catechesis is, Satan may sneak in and sow the seeds of false doctrine and a child may fall away (Matt. 13:24-30). But on the flip side those who have fallen away from the faith always have time to repent and believe once again. It’s not over till the bridegroom comes and ushers in his guests (Matt. 25:1-13). Let us not give up on that wall of faces or of that book of names, but dear saints, dear catechumen, boldly confess the faith that you have been taught, echo what they need to hear!
