Being a Parent

Now, I'm not a parent yet, but hope to be in the next few years. I was listening tonight to Matt Chandler, one of the best Bible teachers I've heard. I absolutly love this guy, and have even had a chance to meet him a few months back. During this sermon, he addressed some emails that he and the staff got that suggested for the church to start up Awana (for those who don't know, Awana is like the Christian version of the Cub Scouts.) He said that every email or call told a story how they were at some function, and another kid could recite a passage, but the emailer's kid couldn't. And then they would end the email with the question. "what are we teaching them." Then Matt said something that Adam and I discussed about a year and a half ago. " The following is verbatum of what Matt said during his sermon in response to those requests. And it eerily sounded alot like what Adam said a year and a half ago.

“The NextGen department here work very hard on two things:
#1 is teaching the glory and majesty and might of God to the children.
And the second is trying to involve YOU in that process.
There is no text in our sacred literature, that says it is the church’s job to impart the might of Christ to your children, that Yours. And all empirical data says that when the church tries, and the parents aren’t in it, it does not work.”
“If your interested, I will send you the empirical data of the percentages of children that grow up in the church, graduate, and walk away from the church for decades.”
“Now don’t get me wrong, I want my daughter and son to know where Obadiah is. But in the end, if they have hearts that have been captivated by Christ, then Obadiah will come.”
“I am not going to have to stand in front of God and give an account for the impartation of the glory of God to your children, you will. Not me.”
“We’re trying to empower you, as parents, to be involved deeply in the spiritual formation of your children. Because honestly it’s a loss if we teach them about the splendors of Christ, and you seem uninterested.”
“You get them all day everyday, we get them for 45 min. a week. If your banking on us, your in trouble, your in trouble.”

Amazing words, I swear that Matt must have had some listening devise to steal our thoughts on that one, because it was dead on to what we were saying. (Or could it be some other supernatural bodiless being that is capable of spreading around ideas that are alike to many people around the globe???) Hum, I wonder?....

Anyways, Matt said a few more good lines that I will post on here tomorrow, but for now I'm out.

P.S. By the way, the percentage is 80%. 8 out of 10 young adults who grew up in the church, when they graduate high school, will leave the church, either to return 10-20 years later, or never. This statistic held true for 4 consecutive years at the church I went to as a youth.
Then again, 86% of all statistics are made up. Who knows?