For some time I have been speaking out on the issue of a "Flawed Discipleship Process" in our churches and in the thinking of many parents. We have been taught and taught others to fully entrust our children into the hands of "professional/trained/teachers" for their spiritual development. In the end a perceived good thing like Sunday School and youth groups has brought terrible results. Instead of parents being taught how to disciple their own kids,others took that role for them. Really, handing our children over to the experts and into great programs seemed like the right thing to do. Parental failure to disciple their own children has resulted in consequences too painful to admit or even carry.
No,I am not church bashing/Sunday school bashing/youth group bashing or parent bashing, this article is presented to raise awareness.
The Following article comes from
Disciple Like Jesus a ministry that focuses on parental disciple making and the tools to accomplish the task.
Disciple Like Jesus Article:
"What's at Stake?
Your children and your friends' eternal destinies are at stake. According to Barna Research and other organizations, the church is losing between 75 and 88 percent of its children (never to return) by their second year of college. Only 9 percent of all born-again Christians have a biblical worldview; that means that your child and friends have less than a 10 percent chance of having a biblical worldview in the future!
Assuming that only 75 percent of all youth are leaving, this translates into more than 2 million children in America each year who are permanently leaving the church and over 40 million lost in the last two decades. If we do nothing to address this situation, by the year 2050 we will lose another 113 million children!
Regarding adult converts, there has been discussion for decades about the "revolving door" in the church. Many churches have reached a plateau of membership, and many are actually declining.
What’s the Root Cause?
We believe that the root cause is a faulty discipleship process that has been used by most Christian parents for decades. In summary, the process is identical to the training system used in secular society, except for the presence of faith-related activities such as church attendance, prayer, etc. The total time spent on biblical training is less than five hours a week. With less than five hours of biblical training a week and more than eighty hours of nonbiblical training/influence a week, the nonbiblical influence easily wins out shortly after our children leave home. As a result, our children and future generations are lost to the world.
This faulty process is based on information transfer (secular education) rather than the development of deep, lifetime relationships with God and man. Consequently, there is no lasting fruit for individuals or for God's kingdom."
The Planter: The faulty process is not only just "information transfer over deepened relationships with God and man but also one of spiritual authority transfer from the parent to other teachers/leaders. We have given up our most important role of discipling our own children without even realizing it. When we do not disciple our own children they do not look to us as having any spiritual authority over them.
