I stood there dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to say. These dear kids had been through far too much in their young life.
Their dad had recently gotten out of prison. They had brought him the night before and were so excited for everyone to meet him. They were excited to be with their dad.
But the next day he left to hang out with some buddies, and he hadn’t come back yet. They didn’t really know where he was. When I asked if it hurt them that he just left, they shrugged and said, “It doesn’t matter.”
They’ve grown used to it.
How do you connect with someone on this level when you had a dad and a mom who loved each other all your growing up years?
How do you connect with people who don’t always have enough money for their next meal because their parents spent what money they had on drugs and alcohol when your family has been able to travel all over the world?
What do you say to young children who have had to learn how to take care of themselves, to be responsible even when their parents were drunk, when you lived at home until you were twenty-one and never had a worry in the world except whether or not “that girl” would say yes?
This is but one small example of how we who have grown up in Christian homes are drastically disconnected from the rest of the world.
If we live and think and relate to people all within the small context of our own upbringing, we won’t know how to connect with people like this. We’ll be able to reach out and have somewhat of an influence on kids because they are desperate for love and care, and we can at least give them that. But we will struggle to ever meaningfully engage adults when our lives are so dramatically disconnected from their own.
The only possible hope for connecting with people in situations like this (most unchurched people in America, today) is when the message we are giving them and the relationship we’re leading them into is not based on things only relevant and applicable to those who grew up with similar experiences as our own.
What I mean is, if in our minds “following Christ” means living the lifestyle we grew up living, we’re not going to connect. But, if “following Christ” means placing all our hope and trust in him and going to his word for discovering our place and purpose in this world, we have a greater hope of transmitting that on to other peoples.
In other words, we need to focus on the core principles of God’s word, not our applications of those principles.
I’m not the only one who has faced times of speechlessness like this. Their are many millennial Christians I know who desperately long to reach out and engage people in our culture, but feel unable to bring them into their church because there is no place for people at their church who did not grow up within their church culture.
My sense is that most people who leave their church (within my generation) don’t leave because they’re throwing away their faith. They leave because they want to reach more people with the Gospel and are unable to as long as they stay in their current setting. I know that’s a generalization. A glossy one, at that. Some of us millennials simply want to do what we want to do and aren’t actually surrendering more of ourselves to participating in the Gospel-movement God is doing throughout the world. But most of the ones I know who have left, did so asking serious, hard questions and sincerely wanting to be more faithful to Christ—not less.
A common question I hear among millennials is “Does it matter that the people I disciple become (fill in denomination)? Do we have to plant (fill in denomination) churches?”
You see, many churches make a big deal about being whatever Christian denomination they are. They seem more committed to their interpretations or applications of God’s word then they are to God. They’re concerned about convincing others of their ideology, not so much of Christ. Furthermore, their ideologies create the culture, and it’s hard for people who didn’t grow up within that culture to adjust into it.
So, the question arises, “If we can’t bring people into our church, is there any point in being a part of it?”
What makes this especially frustrating is that when we look through Scripture we don’t see anything about making (fill in denomination). Rather, we are told to make disciples of Jesus, teaching all he has commanded.
And no one denomination has a monopoly on Christ’s Commandments.
I certainly identify with this frustration. I am extremely uncomfortable with an emphasis on particular denominational distinctions.
But I have also spent the last ten years of my life engaging people from extremely different backgrounds than mine. Discipleship is hard work whether you’re Anabaptist, Presbyterian, or Pentecostal. Discipling people in Christ isn’t any easier than trying to get people convinced about our denominational distinctives.
In fact, it’s actually harder.
It takes much longer to walk with someone as their faith in Christ grows, then to tell them what they should be doing if they really have faith in Christ.
It is always easier making disciples of our own ideologies then it is training people how to seek after God for themselves.
Even so, it’s what we’re called to do.
We’re called to make disciples of Christ of all peoples. And that’s messy!
Our own ideologies are challenged.
We’re forced to give better answers than what we grew comfortable with within our own church background.
The changes we make in the process aren’t wrong. At the same time, we need to make sure we’re making them because of what we have come to understand from God’s word.
If we’re changing our doctrine, our interpretation of Scripture, our methodology of doing ministry or community life, we want to make sure we’re going in a direction that is even more faithful than before to what God has said, not less.
I’m grateful for my church background. But there are things about it I’ve come to realize completely disconnect me from fourteen year-old kids who were forced to grow up long before their time. I am learning to use those experiences as opportunities for evaluating my approach. Am I leading people to a denominational expectation, or to a personal relationship with Christ?
You cannot change someone’s lifestyle or behavior if they have not experienced the Spirit of God transform their heart from the inside out.
Leading people into that transformational process is what we’re called to do; not converting them to our personal ideologies.
How active is your church as a whole in making disciples? What are some ways your church has gone about doing it? Share in the comments below.
