I spent part of today listening to a person's views on God, the Bible and the next life. To the best of my knowledge, this person's views are based on an interesting combination of the Discovery Channel, a few college classes in a secular university, and a very insightful 1997 National Geographic article in the dentist office waiting room.
This person's opinion of my college eduction and personal study was.... unimpressed to say the least. Which is obviously not my fault because if this person had recorded the Discovery Channel's show, then I could have moved to the front of the class. So in this person's estimation, my education was crippled by my confidence in God's Word.
"God's Word" (in this person's estimation) is an ancient tool of the Catholic Church to control the masses. Of course this opened the door for another lecture on all the books the Catholic Church refused to add to the Bible and how biased they were on what books they allowed in the Bible. And all this credible information was gleaned from the Discovery Channel and Tom Hank's movie, "The Da Vinci Code".
I would love to apologize for being snarky and taking creative liberties with my story but alas, no apology is necessary, it is all quite factual. And to make it even more disturbing, quite common.
So if you have stayed with me this far, I will push the limits of your tolerance by suggesting that the root problem of all this confusion is a deterioration of children's Sunday School's across the nation.
Think about this. 3 or 4 generations ago, kids went to Sunday School and Vacation Bible School because parents believed it was the right thing to do. Somewhere along the way their move changed from the right thing to do to, "free daycare" for a couple hours. But that is for another blog.
After a couple generations of kids missing the crucial foundation that is established by Sunday School teachers, those kids became parents and eventually Sunday School was seen as irrelevant.
I meet with kids every week that have no idea that the Bible has 2 divisions. And I am not picking on the kids. We as adults have a God given obligation to train children in His Word, introduce them to His heart, walk them into His presence, and teach them to fear His wrath towards sin.
"Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older,
they will not leave it"
Proverbs 22:6
"Children are a gift from the LORD;
they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man
are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.
How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them!
He will not be put to shame when he confronts
his accusers at the city gates" Psalm 127:3-5
Your spiritual challenge from this blog is to ask yourself what you are doing to prepare the next generation for Christian leadership? The question is not "if" they will lead, the question is "where" they will lead. They will lead their families, their communities, and this nation. The question is, will they lead toward God or away from God.
