He’s not in there…

If you’re still worried about that Jesus family tomb thing read this.

Ugly and Broken

Something over at the Flaming Ministers blog struck a nerve with me this morning. Pardon while I vent.

I want you to know that one of the things I like to do best in the whole world is teach Sunday School. I love to sit down with a group of people and open up the Word of God and reassure them, instruct them, help them and just generally do all the things the Bible says it does when people actually believe it is what it says it is. Is there anything sweeter in this world than the idea that God has actually spoken through his Word and written ALL of it down for us to read? Wow. The only thing I like better is preaching and that’s a whole other gear in the transmission.

But the thing that absolutely breaks me time and again is this: they just generally don’t care. I mean, they come to church fairly regularly. They even attend Sunday School fairly often. But most of them come because they are afraid of the director or they like to have some coffee and donuts unhindered by their kids before the ‘real’ service starts. Something like that, pick your paradigm and run with it.

The reason, though, that they are this way is that they have, most times, never really tasted God’s Word to see if it was good. Oh there are usually a few standouts. There’s always a guy who’s gone through some study course or who actually paid attention a few times back when he was in the children’s department. I am uniformly disappointed with the fact that they don’t have a clue what is going on in the Bible lesson most of the time. So I back and fill and back and fill and bring them up to speed so I can at least give them the three or four points I’ve pulled out of the text—mostly skipped over by the LifeWay quarterly. And then the bell rings.

And all of this is because there is not a real emphasis on the Word of God in the Church anymore. Its all about evangelism and fellowship and missions, not that those aren’t good things because they are. It’s just that they should flow out of the depth of our love and knowledge for Gods Word, not replace it. This just breaks me to the ground every time.

Now the scary thing is that this mysterious group of folks is in their mid thirties now. They’ve got kids and responsibilities and probably a mortgage and a car payment. They are supposed to be primed to be the backbone of church leadership in the future. Are they? Look around and see if they are, but gird up first. It’s an ugly picture.

That’s all I have to say for now. Give Cent’s missional series a read and think about this.

Let the children come to me

13 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.–Mark 10:13-16

Matthew, Mark and Luke record this event in pretty much the same way. Mark and Matthew sandwich this account between a discourse on divorce and the part about the Rich Young Man. Luke has it in the same vicinity as the Rich Young Ruler comes right after it. Matthew has it pretty much like Luke does but Luke ads that they were ‘bringing even infants’ to Jesus to have them blessed. I know that the infant baptism folks use these passages to beat everyone else about the head and shoulders regarding their practice.

In spite of this I think it has more to do with, well, just what it says. The babies and the children weren’t being baptized, they were getting a hug from Jesus and a blessing and he laid his hands on them. Personally if could have my child blessed by Jesus while he was here and I knew who he was I’d do it in a heartbeat. But it’s Jesus. You know, God. ‘Let the children come to me’ he said. Don’t keep them away. Verse 14 tells us that Jesus was ‘indignant’ because they were keeping them away, something that I’m sure I wouldn’t want to face.

Which brings us to the subject of children’s church. Yes I know what you’re thinking, how can the rest of us tolerate all that racket? All that boisterous energy on Sunday? The truth of the matter is that they wouldn’t be so rowdy if they didn’t get all sugared up in Sunday School, for one thing. Church is for spiritual growth, its for fellowship—Baptists have turned their churches into nutrition centers. (If you consider cookies, punch and donuts nutritional.) I say let the parents take care of nutrition and let the Sunday School class take care of…whatever Bible thing the Sunday School Class is supposed to take care of that day. For another thing, they might know how to be still and worship if parents were willing to take the time to sit with them and show them how to worship. If you don’t as, as a parent, who will? This is one of those things that ‘No One Can Do For You’. You have to train your children to go the right way. You can’t pawn it off on the youth director or anyone else—not without disastrous results.

But most of the time it’s just so much easier to let them go to children’s church and relax.

I just think families should worship together. I’m pretty sure this is biblical—someone help me out here.

Do I want to talk about Baptizing kids? No.

v.15 reminds us that we all must receive Christ in the same fashion that a child would receive something of great value. Humbled, awed, submissive—words that most everyone will have trouble with.