Documentary claims age-graded Sunday school harms families

[gb93433]

A controversial new documentary movie contends age-graded Sunday school and youth ministry are doing more harm than good.

In Divided young filmmaker Philip Leclerc sets out to discover why so many people of his generation are leaving the church. The answer, he says, is the "hipster Christianity" approach to youth ministry, centering on fun and games with Bible study tacked on, and the notion that youth pastors are more qualified to train children than their parents.

The rest of the story is at http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/7048/53/

 

[Tom Butler]

While the premise of the documentary is sound--that parents should train their children in spiritual matters--we must also deal with the reality that in some homes, that will never happen.

We have a number of children in Sunday School and in our Wednesday night programs whose parents are unchurched, uninterested in spiritual things, and send their children on our van mainly to get rid of them for a few hours. Most of those parents have never set foot in our church. If we do not teach them, they will not be taught.

 

[Scarlett O.]

While the premise of the documentary is sound--that parents should train their children in spiritual matters--we must also deal with the reality that in some homes, that will never happen.

We have a number of children in Sunday School and in our Wednesday night programs whose parents are unchurched, uninterested in spiritual things, and send their children on our van mainly to get rid of them for a few hours. Most of those parents have never set foot in our church. If we do not teach them, they will not be taught.

Precisely....

It's sad to say and strange to say, but there are many parents out there who need to be trained in how to parent and how to lead their children in spiritual matters. Why? Because when you are a spiritual child, yourself, still feeding on milk - how can you lead anyone else in spiritual matters? You can't and you won't.

There are a lot a factors that contribute to this - one of the main ones, in my opinion, is that far too many churches are not leading their saved members in sanctification. Ergo, you may have good and sweet and even saved parents who love their children, but they don't love the Lord as they should and can't teach their children to do so.

Salvation seems to be the only goal in some churches. It's the primary goal - obviously - but salvation isn't the end of the church's responsibility to people in terms of spiritual growth.

 

[Salty]

I have seen many parent come to church & get saved because of the youth ministry

 

[Berean]

This book has an indorsement by Paige Patterson for what it may mean to you.

 

[preachinjesus]

Overblown documentary with an agenda.

Are youth groups the best and only method of reaching and equipping teens? Nope...but they've proven themselves worth the investment of strategy, resources, and intentionality.

What makes any youth group strong? Parents. What makes teens strong? Parents.

Do all teens have spiritually maturing parents who disciple them? Nope.

Age segmentation is a helpful strategy. You don't do it, like it, etc fine...but don't try to force our dogma onto my strategy that is working.

 

[Berean]

When the United States of America goes back to a Republic, governed by the Contitution then Baptist Churches will go back to this.