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LOS ALAMOS 1ST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 20, 2008
“ARK SUNDAY”

“WHILE THEY’RE YOUNG”
OLD TESTAMENT TEXT:  DEUTERONOMY 6:4-9

SCRIPTURE TEXT:  4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. – Deut. 6:4-9 (NIV)

MESSAGE:  “Impress them – these commandments – on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”  To the Jewish people, both in ancient times and today, there was no more important parental duty than to teach the Word of God to one’s children.  Both fathers and mothers were and still are involved in virtually continuous recitation of the salient points of Old Testament scripture to their children.  Many Jewish children in larger cities, in addition to their regular secular schooling, attend Hebrew school in the late afternoons for 2 to 3 hours daily – from kindergarten through sixth grade.  Observant Jews are extremely serious about teaching their children the fundamentals of their faith.  For if a child attains the age of 14 and does not complete the rite of “bar mitzvah” for boys or “bat mitzvah” for girls, then that child is considered lost to the Jewish people.  He or she no longer shares in God’s covenant to the Hebrews.

Some years ago I became aware, as a pastor, of a worldwide Christian organization called “Child Evangelism Fellowship.”  Child Evangelism Fellowship exists to encourage the diligent and systematic teaching of the Christian faith to children -- and the younger the better.  Child Evangelism Fellowship contends that many children at four years of age are capable of making genuine decisions of faith in Jesus Christ.  While I don’t personally agree with Child Evangelism Fellowship on everything, I do believe that they are correct in this assertion:  Worldwide, 90% of all religious faith adherents -- be they to Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, the Muslim faith, Zoroastrianism, or whatever religion you choose to name – 90% of all religious decisions are made by or before the age of 14 years.  Most Christians make their personal decision for Christ as children.  Most Muslims choose their faith as children.  Most atheists reject the concept of God as children.  Whatever one’s faith – or the lack thereof -- may be, it’s largely determined during childhood.

As I assert that, I’m pretty sure there are those among you who question its validity.  We Americans like to think that we’re each and all quintessentially independent – that we make our own decisions when and how we want.  But I’ve already asked many of you to tell me your faith histories.  So I know that a significant majority of you were raised in the church of Jesus Christ.  Slightly more than half of you have been Methodists all your lives.  And 90% to 95% of you made your personal decision to follow Christ before the age of 14.  So what Child Evangelism Fellowship says on a global scale fits Los Alamos First United Methodist Church.  Actually, I’m one of the “10% minority” regarding religious faith.  I was raised in a secular home. I didn’t accept Christ until I was 20.

Despite my own personal experience, it really is more generally true that faith, if it is to form at all, is best and most readily formed among children.  And that means that most Christian churches which consist, in our nation at least, of those well beyond 14 years of age, need to re-order our ministry priorities.  If we are to have a future as the Church of Jesus Christ in America, we need to focus on those fields where the potential harvest is plentiful, rather than major in gleaning the corners of acreage that has already largely been cleared.

Let me be bold enough to suggest three things that our church needs to do less of – and, at one and the same time, three things it should do more of.  I warn you, you may find your toes tingling after I step on them.

This church, in particular, needs fewer activities designed around the likes and wants of senior citizens.  Remember, as I say that, I’m 60 years old.  I therefore know that there’s a perfectly good senior center in Los Alamos, and it’s a great place to enjoy a multiplicity of those sorts of things.  What this church, and this town, really needs is more opportunities for young adult Christian fellowship.  But I’ve already tried, twice, to promote such here.  And well-meaning older adults have thrown up so many roadblocks – financial, physical, and personnel-wise – that I realize the support needed to sustain such isn’t to be found at present.  But it needs to develop – lest this church become Los Alamos’ next museum.

This church, in particular, needs fewer religiously irresponsible parents.  I’ve been in many of your homes; I’ve talked one-on-one with many of you.  And I know that many of you are far more concerned about your child’s class standing in school than you are about your child’s standing with God.  You encourage your children to learn how to play soccer on Sunday mornings over and above coming to Sunday School to learn the Word of the Living God.  And then you wonder why, at 15, your daughter turns up pregnant.  You’re devastated that your 17 year old son received an MIP citation.  What this church needs is more religiously zealous parents – who daily teach the Bible to their kids at home and bring them to church on Sundays for Christian nurture with and among others of like mind and heart.  And when your kid says, as they inevitably will, “I don’t want to go to church today,” you simply respond, “It’s not a choice.”  Responsible parents don’t give six year olds the choice of whether or not they’re going to brush their teeth, and they don’t give ten-year olds the choice as to whether or not they’re going to church.

And this church, in particular, needs fewer folks who are stuck in the past, culturally and religiously.  Again I’m 60 – which means I’m a “baby boomer.”  But I truly hope my watch didn’t stop in 1965.  I know for sure that I’m not wedded to the church worship patterns of the 1950’s or ‘60’s, because I didn’t grow up with them.  But dozens of our regular members are still, chronologically, anchored back there.  And that means the early, contemporary worship service always plays “second fiddle” to the later, so-called “traditional” worship service – traditional, that is, for 1955.  Even though the growing edge of this church is the early service, I constantly have to remind folks who come to me to say, “I want to present this in worship” that we have two worship services.  And nine-times-in-ten they respond with, “Oh well, I’m not interested in coming to the early service.  I just want to do it at 11 o’clock.” Let me be candid:  If what you want to offer isn’t important enough to inconvenience yourself by coming twice on a given Sunday, then it’s not important enough for me, as pastor, to alter one service but not the other.  This church needs more folks who are future-directed.  Frankly, I don’t much care what was done here in 1955 – or 1985 – unless you’re offering to do it anew in 2008 or 2009.  For you see, I believe that this church’s best years are yet to come.

Today is ARK Sunday.  We’re celebrating a significant ministry of this church with children.  The word of God, specifically Proverbs 22:6, says, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.”  Whenever I get ready to do a “chapel time” with ARK children, I think they’re awfully young to learn anything about Jesus.  But then I realize I’ve got a very powerful co-teacher, the Holy Spirit.  And so I try – and, amazingly, they learn a lot more than I ever anticipated!

I was just getting started in the ministry, serving as minister to youth for a large congregation in suburban Atlanta, Georgia.  One weekend just a few weeks into my tenure there, the senior pastor went on vacation -- and I was asked to preach in his stead.  The preaching went OK, and when it came time for the invitation to Christian discipleship, I asked if anyone would like to step forward and profess their faith in Jesus Christ.  A little boy named Neal, seven years of age, ran down the aisle.  For a moment I thought he was just being rowdy.  But he ran right up to me and said, “I want to accept Jesus as my Savior.”

Even though I’d only been there a few weeks, I knew who little Neal was, as his older brother was in the church’s youth group.  Neal was always trying to tag along with him, even though he was far too young.  Frankly I, at least initially, thought much the same thing about his expressed desire to profess his faith in Jesus.  But he had come forward in response to the invitation, so I gave him the microphone.  He offered a short and sincere testimony, repenting of his sins and accepting Christ as his personal Savior.  The entire congregation clapped as he scampered back down the aisle to rejoin his parents in their pew.

Little Neal, thirty years later, became a close advisor to one of our U. S. presidents, Bill Clinton.  I was pleased to know that a man of sincere Christian faith, from early childhood onward, was helping -- in at least a small way -- to steer the course of our great nation.

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