The Age of Accountability

One of the good things about Facebook and Twitter is that you can be exposed to articles and blogs that you probably had no idea existed. This was the case when my "Facebook Friend", Melanie Cryar (Fact about Melanie: she is the mother of  pretty half of the Indi-Atl-Americana band The Vespers) posted this blog post titled "Top 10 Reasons Our Kids Leave Church".  You can read it here: http://marc5solas.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/top-10-reasons-our-kids-leave-church/

In case you didn't know, in the past 20 years, The Evangelical Church has really loosned up  to the point where many of its big time pastors do not wear ties or tuck in their shirts when they preach. My mother spent a good part of my youth impressing upon me the necessity of wearing a tie and tucked in shirt when you are at church. It turns out God doesn't care as much about clothing as he did in 1967.

Many churches do not have organs in the traditional sense (organs are called "keyboards" now). They have guitars, keyboards, and drums. The "worship leader" does not even wave his arms when he is singing a "worship song". You don't look at a hymnal-you look at a screen. The words of some of the songs are familiar but the tunes are different.  Church members sit in "chairs" instead of "pews".  For some reason the lights are rarely turned on and you stand up a lot. I have  (Mom, do not hold this against me) actually drank a cup of coffee during worship service.  Things have changed.

There is a lot to recommend in this blog post. In fact, Evangelicals are a fairly reflective bunch. We're always wondering if we are doing the right thing in the right way.

The writer ("Marc") says, "We’ve taken a historic, 2,000 year old faith, dressed it in plaid and skinny jeans and tried to sell it as “cool” to our kids. It’s not cool. It’s not modern. What we’re packaging is a cheap knockoff of the world we’re called to evangelize".  People are always trying to re-engineer Christianity make it relevant to the "modern man". On the Liberal side of Christianity, this is really big. The Modern Man cannot believe in this part of the Bible or that part of Scripture or fifty other things.  Some Evangelicals have gotten in on the act  like Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, and others. However, generally Evangelicals have tried to tell the old, old story with in a new way and most of the time it is LOUD. Sometimes it works very well, like at Passion City Church in Atlanta. Sometimes it doesn't.

The post is very well written and is worth every Evangelical's time to read. The idea that the Evangelical Church is some sort of market driven entity needs to be hashed out out in the seminaries. Lord knows we need to do a better job in educating Evangelical youth in the faith.

However, I do have one slight problem and I've might have I've misread him, but I took him to believe that when "kids" leave the Church, it is the Church's fault. I'm not quite sure I buy that. Many times it has nothing to do with the Church at all. When some people get a taste of "sex, drugs, and rock and roll", they end up liking it. In my corner of the Evangelical World, we have this phrase called "The Age of Accountability". It just means that a person becomes accountable for their own actions when they can make a rational decision. Sometimes kids make a conscience decision to leave the faith.

I have a dear friend of mine who is very concerned over her adult son who has announced that he is an agnostic. My friend is a very devout and provided this young man with a Christian home. However, when her son was young (stop me if you have heard this before) his father  ran off with another woman.  While it is not a 'scientific' fact, it is remarkable how many agnostics and atheists have rotten Dads.  
 
Maybe he'll come back to the faith. He's still young and maybe it's just a phase he is going through. I know he has a Mom praying for him everyday.