Another helpful read from Christianity Today addresses the generational concern about the transmission of faith. Citing what might at first blush appear too simplistic, Stanley Hauerwas says:
The future of the church is not found in things like this; the future is doing the same thing Sunday after Sunday.
...some may have heard enough already. But a more careful consideration is warranted. The article's author, Anthony Baker, goes on:
If young church-goers are coming of age thinking they can trade the gospel message for participation in social causes, and demean the creeds and Communion as disposable husks, then something is indeed broken.
We are misguided, if we assume that getting acculturation right depends on constant novelty. Teaching children and adults to work with the gospel's words about God, to speak the traditional yet constantly new language of the Christian faith, is the only real "fix" for what ails us.
What children today desire, according to research, is "the realness of authenticity of faith". What we give them instead is a hastily painted undersea mural. In the memorable words of Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster, young people "look to the church to show them something, someone, capable of turning their lives inside out and the world upside down". Most of the time we have offered them pizza.
Read more here...
