Living with Tension

At the Council on Ministries meeting the other night I noticed that we began discussing the topic of children in the church setting. We talked about them in Sunday School and in worship services. In the conversation, I noticed that several different persons kept making a statement like this one, "Kid's today are not the same as when I was growing up." Several persons reflected on what it was like for them when they were growing up in the church. They described the Sunday School and the teachers. They also described the worship service and what was expected of them as children.
As the discussion continued, I noted another refrain in the conversation that went something like this, "We need to get back to worship or Sunday School like it was when we were growing up." It finally dawned upon me that we had a tension in the room that night that we probably would not be able to resolve.
I said to the group, let me tell you what I have heard us saying tonight. I then stated the two statements that I had been hearing. I then suggested that we would not be able to resolve the tension that we felt if we continued to try and do things the way that we had always done things. On the one had they acknowledge the difference in generations, but on the other hand they were still trying to minister in ways similar to their childhood experiences. I suggested that a new age of children might just call for a new way of thinking about how we do ministry with those children.
My revelation was pretty much met with silence. I suggested that we think and pray about this issue. The issue is one that rears its head in many different ways in the church. Too many churches still think in terms of a 1950's model of ministry. A lot has happened in our world and society since that time. Perhaps it is time to begin rethinking how we do a lot of the ministry that we do in the church.