Teach It And They Will Come
As my wife and I continue our search for a new church home, I have continued to learn more about different churches and their approaches. One of the things that I have found a bit alarming is that there don't seem to be many who emphasize learning.
While worship, prayer, ministry and fellowship are essential to being a well-rounded Christian, education in the gospel should be the core of our faith.
To give some background, I've been to several different "styles" of churches. I've been to ones which have hour-long services where 40 minutes is taken up by the sermon, and I've been to ones which have hour-and-a-half-long services where 25 minutes is taken up by the sermon. Both can work. For me, it's always come down to the content that the pastor provides in their sermon.
That's why when I hear a sermon about a handful of verses, which may even be taken out of context, or a very superficial exploration of a Bible chapter, I'm often put off by that church and am less likely to come back.
You might be thinking that I'm forgetting bible studies and adult education classes. Nope. While these groups are great for further educating the congregation, that does not mean that sermons should be a "light" version of education in the gospel. Many people have a hard time generating interest in these groups, and even more have a hard time finding time for them. Therefore, I would argue that we have to work to educate the congregation as much as possible during the sermon, and then allow bible studies and classes to build upon this in more detail.
After all, Jesus didn't tell people just the basics and ask them to come to a class if they wanted more information. He went to the masses and shared the Word of God with all of them. He was trying to reach as many as possible and tell them as much as he could!
Being not too far removed from college, I am well aware that many students who have been raised in the church often struggle when they get out on their own. The reason is that many of them do not have the proper education about their faith to refute false claims and otherwise defend their faith. This leads to them questioning their own beliefs, and often being pulled away from God.
This can often be directly tied to the lack of proper education in our churches. If the point of our schools and universities is to educate students to make them better members of society, shouldn't the point of our churches be to make their congregants better members of the body of Christ?
Plus, a lot of the people I know want some meet. But, everyone seems to be trying to spoon feed them strained peas. They don't like that attitude so they don't stick around.
Where's the beef?
I know exactly what you mean. If you look at society and it's phenomenas, you can see that people are clamoring for knowledge and answers. Wikipedia, Digg, and Google all put this information at our fingertips online and are growing each day. Games and viral marketing, like those for LOST and Cloverfield get people very involved in them. The world is hungry for it.
But are we, as a church body, providing it? Like you said, we really aren't. Instead we are feeding crackers to those who are craving a meal.
I had a conversation with a youth pastor recently that talked about that very issue. He is the only youth pastor in town studying Romans systematically, verse by verse. He is content with the size of his group, because he knows his purpose is to teach the Bible and transform lives.
There is more on this conversation at my blog.
(sorry for the plug - but if you are looking for water, I want to point out where you might find some)