The 1900s did not leave us with many individuals in the church who knew what they believed. There was an attempt to simplify the church and a growing concern for the "business" of the church. Rather than focusing on the depth of ministry, many churches focused on the breadth of their ministry. When the focus of a church goes from discipling Christ-like members to reaching the nations by whatever means necessary, you get things like the church growth movement and the seeker-sensitive movement.
Seemingly overnight, a church's health became defined by how many people attended on any given Sunday, how much money the church had, and how prolific their programs and community involvement were. Much of this happened under the noses of genuinely born-again believers because they did not know what they believed. How did they not know? I would argue there are a handful of reasons, but one of the primary reasons was a lack of catechizing the next generation.
Imagine being hired for a job at a car factory, and as you clock in for your first day, someone shows you how to clock in and out, gives you a name badge, and shows you to your workstation. No one explains your job to you besides the big picture of you guys putting cars together. As you look at the tools in front of you, you are unaware of their names and purposes, so you look over to see what the guy next to you is doing. He then tells you that he has learned over the decades that you can use the crescent wrench to solve most, if not all, of your problems, so he has discarded the rest of his tools.
As you begin to work by putting together what is in front of you, you realize there are certain times when the crescent wrench is easy to use and very helpful. However, there are other times when you drive sharp, pointy things through certain pieces, making your hand hurt. In your curiosity and frustration, you begin to research the names of your tools and their purposes. It takes considerable time and effort, but you eventually start to understand and experiment with using the different tools for your job. You see, your production has gone up, and your comfort in your job has gotten significantly better. As you peer across to your neighbor working with their crescent wrench, you begin to tell him about one of the tools called a power drill and how it helps to get the small pointy things (which you now know are called screws) into the metal frame much faster and easier.
Unfortunately, as you approach worker after worker, you get one of the following responses:
I have always used this crescent wrench, and it has been good enough. I don't need your special "extra" tools.
Unlike you, I don't need to know the names and definitions of all of these tools in our toolbox. I can do my job just fine without fancy words, hours of research, etc.
Only specialists in the upstairs department need to know what all of these tools are and what they do. You are an overachiever.
My dear friends, we come into the 21st century as a church lacking doctrinal understanding and conviction because we have failed to train the next generation in God's truth. These responses are typical in the church as we have all been welcomed into God's family but have not been trained in the truth. The church's response to those who read, study, and seek to understand the things of God deeply is stubborn unwillingness, demeaning words, and a disenfranchised view of the role of study in the average Christian life. Listen to this account from the Scriptures.
6 When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. 7 And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the LORD had done for Israel. 8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of 110 years. 9 And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. 10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.
Judges 2:6–10
Joshua had trained a generation to be faithful, and they were! However, that generation failed to train the next; thus, their children did not know the Lord. It is a sad portion of Scripture but nonetheless true for our time as well. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was common practice for Baptist churches to catechize their youth and young believers. They have used Keach's catechism or perhaps Broadus's, but they would've ensured the basic tenets of the faith were understood through the art of repeating and memorizing foundational truths of our faith.
If the average Christian knew the answers to the Baptist catechism, had worked on memorizing verses throughout their childhood and young adult years, understood the overall scope of systematic theology, had read of church history, and had been trained in basic hermeneutical principles…think of how different the church would have reacted when they were told of the social justice movement, the prosperity gospel, the church growth/seeker-sensitive movement. Whole churches would have been equipped to stand for biblical truth and defend the faith!
My plea to you is this: Let us be the generation that turns the ship around. Let us raise our children in the truth and daily train them in it. Let us stand firm for the education of our members in understanding these core truths of the faith and not falling for the lie that it is the pastor's job to know those things. What if we raised our children to stand on our shoulders and be the fathers, husbands, wives, mothers, and Christians we wish to be? What if God has called you to sacrifice everything to ensure the next generation can stand on God's truth without wavering in an increasingly hostile world?
May God bless your week as you seek His kingdom first!
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Dan
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