Dear Rose Park,
This coming Friday, a small group of us from Rose Park will be attending a Generation Spark conference in Grand Rapids (for more information on Generation Spark, click here). I anticipate this time to be filled with prayer, discernment, worship and Word. It will be a time of intergenerational listening and vision-casting as we hope for the guidance of the Holy Spirit and anticipate international ministry finding a home here at Rose Park.
Here’s one of the questions I’ve been pondering as I prepare for this conference: What do you think Rose Park will look like in the year 2050? Who will be our leaders and who will be seated in the sanctuary? This is one of the questions our youth and family ministry committee has been pondering since its genesis back in January. We don’t have an exact answer to this question, but we do know that as we care for the church today, we must always keep an eye on the horizon because the church of 2050 is formed and developed today.
According to a May 2022 study done by the Barna Group, among adults 18-29 the church dropout rate sits at 64 percent (full article linked here). This is a startling number, but just as startling is the conclusion that spiritual beliefs are largely set by the time a person reaches 13 years of age. This is to say, according to President and CEO of Awana (a global leader in child discipleship) Matt Markins: “if we’re looking at age 18 as the ‘deadline’ [to encourage and impact spiritual beliefs], we’re looking at the wrong deadline. It’s not 18; it’s 13.”
Given this information, the discipleship of children, those prior to the teen years, must be paramount to the church. According to that same Barna study, “there is a large discrepancy in who people believe should be responsible for the faith formation of our children. 95% of children’s ministry leaders say the home is the primary source of discipleship, while more than 50% of parents say the primary source is the church…this reveals that children’s ministry leaders and parents don’t agree when it comes to faith formation, resulting in a stalemate. Rather than disagreeing and putting the responsibility on the other party, caregivers and children’s ministry leaders need to begin working better together.”
The dropout rate and the responsibility dilemma bring me back to our baptismal promises: do you promise to love, encourage, and support these brothers and sisters by teaching the Gospel of God’s love, by being an example of Christian faith and character, and by giving the strong support of God’s family in fellowship, prayer, and service?
If the discipleship of children must be paramount for the church of 2050, then I hope and pray we are not going through the motions when it comes to loving, encouraging, supporting, teaching, or modeling God’s love to future generations. Ultimately, the Barna study concluded, “children who have a meaningful relationship with an adult in the church are more likely to be rooted in Scripture, to be grounded in children’s ministry and the life of the church, and to externalize faith and move towards generous, countercultural behavior. Strong intergenerational connections don’t happen by accident. For the future church we must invest in community-building today.”
So, will you join us in investing in intergenerational relationships? Will you be intentional about getting to know the next generation? Will you be intentional about being discipled and discipling others in the love of Christ? Again, as we care for the church today let each of us keep an eye on the horizon because the Rose Park of 2050 is loved, formed, and built today.
Grace & Peace,
Pastor Mark