failing with 95%

Today I attended a meeting at my church regarding the future of the children's ministry.

Some of the statistics that were presented in this meeting were frightening.

A recent study in Canada showed that 95% of people who were raised in the church had walked away by the time they were 25.

95%

Why is that?

What is happening in society, in the church, and in our homes which is turning people off to God?

Obviously, the answer is complicated. And not one I claim to know or understand fully, but if I could analogize my theory, it would look something like this...

Math has never been one of my stronger subjects. I don't like dealing within the realm of what's intangible, and once letters started becoming numbers, and then negatives starting becoming numbers, and then things that were "imaginary" started becoming numbers... well, I pretty much checked out of ever really getting what was going on. I was always able to memorize the procedures of skill sets, however, in a way that kept me at the top of my class in math all the way through high school and into Calculus.

But, I honestly never understood what the heck I was doing. I knew how to solve the equations, find the slopes, and find the function, but it never meant anything to me.

Because I never knew how to apply it.

The second I realized that I had enough math credits to earn the diploma was I going for, I dropped Calculus in a second and I never looked back. And honestly, the fact that I didn't have to worry about all of those unknowns anymore was extremely freeing. I was no longer bound by the "intangible". I didn't have lie awake at night contemplating the transitive versus distributive property. I just rejected it all, and I was happy with that choice.

It didn't matter to me that what I didn't understand were mathematical truths. I didn't care about the potential problem-solving skills I was missing out on. It just felt good to not worry about it anymore.

Having not been raised in the church, I'm not sure what it would have taken for me to have walked away from my upbringing. In fact, because my upbringing was void of church in general, and I saw how well that was working for me, I went running into every church I could find looking for something better. But, if I had been raised in most of the churches I tried out in my search, it probably would have been easy to walk away when the going-got-tough in my life.

I remember what it was like searching for God during my adolescence. I always believed in God, but I was fearful of Christians and church because I never felt "good" enough to be with them. I always ended up breaking some hidden rules during a church service, like not knowing when to stand up or sit down. I felt stupid when the preacher would use a term like "lamb of God" and I didn't know who he was talking about. I couldn't keep up with the Christianese or the dress code or the judgment. Church was a scary, unaccepting place--especially for a 16-year-old who was going at it alone.

And PS--The media does a great job of highlighting the most discouraging members, practices, and misguided beliefs of the Christian faith. Until my adult life, I thought that almost every church goer was a gay-hating, bible-thumping, hypocrite. This, I'm happy to say, is the exception, not the rule.

Before I mentioned how I didn't like dealing in the intangible. Many would argue that God is intangible. But my saving grace came in the very tangible relationship that I had with my grandmother. When I think back to the early defining moments in my faith, they were always with her. And what she told me and showed me about Jesus Christ was very tangible. Tangible doesn't mean visible, it means perceivable. It was this significant relationship which encouraged me to not give up on God because I couldn't fit in at church.

But, now I'm a parent. And I don't want my daughter to learn procedure and equations and meaningless memorization about God. I want her to experience God. I want the church to lay the foundation for this and be supportive of her growth in her relationship with God. I want her to be able to apply what she learns on Sunday (and every other day at home) in life.

And I feel like I have to fight for this. I going to have to fight against a society which tries to fill her head with lies about herself, about God, and about what is right. But I also feel like I'm going to have to fight against much of the church in what I teach her to be.

I'm not sure that any parent thinks about this stuff when they decide that they want to have a baby. I know I sure didn't.

We were asked to consider something today. We were to picture our children at the age of 30. And looking at our children as adults, we were asked what life choice or situation could they possibly be in/have made which would grieve us the most as parents.

The only thing I could think of that would disappoint me about my children would be if they were to not have a relationship with God.

I truly believe I could love my kids through anything. There are many choices my children will make, but to reject God would be the one I would hold myself accountable for without pity.

Parents have the most potential for shaping a child's perception of our Creator.

Good or bad, the most potential.

I could have never comprehended what responsibility that is.

Math was way easier.