Everything Must Change

I recently accepted Teen Sabbath School leader down at church because it is another area I believe that is overlooked in the important development stages of our young peoples’ faith.

I see teens who choose to opt out of Pathfinders falling through the cracks because outside of this the church doesn’t really cater for them until they hit 16 when they go into Youth.

Consequently, its an age where you see a lot of kids become bored with or leave the church like I did as a teen. Standard answers to the problem like "well they should be in Pathfinders" are not helpful. As much as I believe in Pathfinders, the fact remains that some kids don’t like it and so we need to be careful when giving simplistic answers to the problem.

We are losing kids and we need to understand why.

There is a very clear connection with attendance patterns between youth and older males at church too. These two groups draw from the same well when it comes to staying at church. We have alot to learn and alot to unlearn if we really want to retain and hold both.

That is why our theme for the Bunbury Teen Sabbath School this quarter is "Everything Must Change" which is written in bold colours on our door. I got this from a song I heard on the radio recently and felt it summed up pretty much what needs to happen for our youth and men.

The sooner we realise the big losses we are experiencing in this area, the sooner we can get about fixing the problem. Fixing it though, will involve changing the way we are used to doing church and it will certainly upset the devil when we start.

Change is good and all we need to do is get out of the way when it needs to happen, despite the protests of others. Nothing short of stoic white knuckle Jesus type faith will suffice for getting ourselves and those we care about all the way home.

It’s all good,
Danny