the Exodus of young people from the church

Okay, kids. Here's the blog post I referred to tonight by the friend of a friend, Jonathan Erdman. It is addressing this idea that many in the Christian fundamentalist world (like good old Ken Ham) have about why young people leave the church: that they simply aren't trained well enough in the Christian worldview / Christian apologetics.

Here are a couple quotes of Jonathan's, just so you'll go read the whole entry at the link I provide below.

"As one who has extensively studied Christian apologetics and a 'biblical worldview,' I would like to say a few words regarding modern fundamentalist Christian apologetic movements. It is a simple truth, but one that obviously still gets missed in some circles: you can't brainwash yourself into genuine faith."

AND

"Then I found that the whole idea of one biblical worldview is itself a very disrespectful way to approach the Bible. The Bible does not present itself to us as a worldview textbook. It is true, that it is possible chop the Bible up, pull out verses here and there, and assemble a grand systematic approach to the world. But as I engaged the text itself, in its original languages and in some of its original settings, I found that Scripture is a collection of highly diverse texts, with a wide range of genres (some that are even original to the Bible itself), written by many different persons over a long period of time. Gradually I realized how un-systematic the Bible was, and I was able to relax, which opened up the Bible to me in a way that renewed my faith and pushed me forward."

http://theosproject.blogspot.com/2009/08/exodus.html

Hey I wanted to put some feelers out to see what the interest would be in doing some music some time in some way in our Sunday night group. After the conversation Tuesday night a couple weeks back about our general aversion to the emotional experiences equal God's presence and performance based methods of worship we've all been accustomed to, I thought maybe we should experiment with doing something different. If I'm not mistaken, many of our members are music lovers and or players, so I thought a music element could be a positive thing for us - music has, after all, been a pretty integral part of christian gatherings since new testament times.

The whole concept is completely up for discussion - whether we want to do something like this at all, and if so, how could we do it and how often etc. Let me know what you think.

Oh and if you're reading this and you aren't a part of the group you are still welcome to comment or suggest!

Be Content

I found this on a blog from Malaysia and thought it was appropriate.

Sunday Night Cooking and Location Schedule

Date----------------------------Cooking---------------------------Location
August 9th----------------------Justin-----------------------------Justin's
August 16th---------------------Nicki------------------------------Stetson's
August 23rd---------------------Jason-----------------------------Stoffer's
August 30th---------------------Alex------------------------------Justin's

Family Camp

So on Sunday I had the opportunity to jump in the car with my kiddos and my parents and go up to Plains for Family Camp. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, this is the once-a-summer- time that all of the people from the Churches of God in the state get together for about four days to camp, play, do conferences, have services, etc. It was one of the few times in the last 10 to 15 years that I hadn't been there for the entire event, and so I was partially excited.

Anyway, thoughts of prejudice against the church were on my mind and so I determined to try and not be too focused on things that might otherwise get under my skin like the heavy prayer sighing or that predictable speech about how important it is for us all to chip in on the TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS it takes to put on this camp ( that's right, ten grand). It was fairly ironic that I stepped out of the truck to the sound of "Baby Got Book" which is the christiany version of that rap song "Baby got back" - I just had to shake my head ("Oh baby, I wanna read witcha Cause your Bible's got pictures My minister tried to console me But that Book you got makes M-m-me so holy"). Yes I'm being completely serious.

BUT - it ended up being a really good time, like therapeutically good. I talked with a lot of people from the past who were really excited to see me and the kids, people who have known me since I was a real little girl. In the Church of God I have always been someone important, maybe because I was Frank and Connie's daughter or maybe just because I was part of the church, and Church of God folks love young people (probably because of the young people shortage).

So I started thinking about how important it is to belong to something - a community, or cultural group or extended family or whatever, and how much being a part of that shapes our identity. My family moved away from my grandparents and aunts and uncles when we were little and are not close with them at all, but we've always said that the church was like our extended family. So family camp really brought to light how disconnected I've felt since our (mine and Jese's) break with the church. Like I don't have enywhere to stand. And with all the chaos that we've undergone this past year in our family it was amazing how just being in a place where everyone knows and cares for me made me feel safe and maybe whole.

I guess the question for me would then be, How do we break off from the traditional churches ideas and practices that we may find false and empty, and still maintain a life-giving connection with them? Or possible create our own extended family-like community, which would require some permanence?