Our two boys are currently playing Upwards Basketball at a local church. As those of you familiar with Upwards will know, part of the purpose of that program is to introduce boys and girls to Jesus Christ - nothing wrong with that. One of the ways the program does that is to have a short devotional for the children during the half-time of each game - again, nothing wrong with that.
However, at our first game this past week, I was more than a little concerned about the message given, or at least implied, by that half-time devotion. The overarching message was the Jesus loves you, in fact that He loves everyone no matter what. They had a man dressed up as Elmo from Sesame Street helping with the presentation and at one point the speaker said Jesus even loves Elmo with his big funny nose. He then went on to say that Jesus loves you even when you 'mess up', not sin mind you, just 'mess up'. So what does that look like? Its like when you spray silly string inside the house. I kid you not, that was the illustration given. The speaker said he likes to spray silly string inside the house (and he then sprayed it across the crowd of kids much to their glee) but that his wife loves him even when he does that and that's how Jesus loves us too.
Now, my wife thinks I'm overreacting given that these were kids between 1st and 3rd grade, at least where our boys were concerned. However, leaving aside the theological issues around 'Jesus loves everyone in the world', my feeling is it is never OK to trivialize sin in this way. Even very young children are capable of understanding the holiness of God and the seriousness of sin. They must in fact understand that in my opinion before they can repent and be saved. Which brings me to another point, there was no mention at all of repentance - just Jesus loves you no matter what.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Sin is Like Silly String
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14 comments:
I don't think you're wrong to be concerned, as these are important matters. If I were in your shoes, I'd be sure to clarify matters with my kids when we got back home. Of course, that doesn't help the families who are not as discerning as you are, and that's the sad part.
Maybe you should volunteer to lead the devotion one week. ;)
Thanks for the feedback Tim!
I think perhaps Turn or Burn might be a little over the top for kids that young.
Turn or burn is not an effective gospel presentation for any age Steven. My point is no true gospel presentation minimizes sin or leaves out repentance. Given that Jesus' first word at the beginning of His recorded ministry was 'repent' (Matthew 4:17), I think we should take that seriously.
This can be explained to even children in ways they can understand. John Piper's Sunday School literature for children in fact does and excellent job of this.
Athletics provides many opportunities to illustrate messages on topics like sin, forgiveness, redemption and reconciliation. It's a shame that the teacher didn't use the teaching opportunity that the court provided.
I do think however that children need to first experience the radical and unconditional love of God through a relationship with parents and other adults. Of course, this is where we probably part ways theologically speaking.
I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you Joel. I believe that God ordains the means as well as the outcome and He often uses tender loving parents and adults to draw children to Himself. However, I would not say they 'need' that kind of experience in order to be saved. If so, many, many children have no hope not having such adults in their lives.
What they do need though is to hear the gospel truly and accurately taught as that is the only thing ordained by God to bring about conversion in conjunction with the activity of the Holy Spirit.
I am with you wholeheartedly Larry. Sin is not Silly String. One needs just to read the first few pages of Genesis to see the destructive effects of original sin. Sin should be dealt with seriously, justly. Christian parents and Christian leaders have a responsibilty to their charges, no matter what their age, to deal with the facts of the Gospel in their entirety. One can easily present the gospel to a young child in manner which is truthful and loving. I believe anything short of that is shameful. Perhaps parents who prefer a watered down gospel for their children prefer a watered down gospel for themselves as well. I am not ashamed of the gospel and I am not ashamed to teach it to my children in its entirety.
I have heard that Piper's literature is great.
I also want to commend you on your blog.
I agree with your wife, I think you are overreacting. You have a great blog!
Thanks Jason!
Two things strike me about this:
1) Elmo? Really? For grades 1 to 3? I'm not a parent quite yet, but isn't he for the preschool and kindergarten age group? I'm sure some 3rd grader out there was thinking of ways to take Elmo down...
2) When did sin become a 4 letter word? Was the guy giving the devotion part of the Unitarian Church?
While the devotion could have used a bit more thought, I've heard worse.
Jesus spoke the words of repentance to multitudes of people who had gathered to hear John the baptist. While the multitude probably included many children, it is clear that anytime Jesus spoke directly to or about children He spoke of the danger in hindering them from coming to Him. Too long have we beaten people over the head with their sin, calling them out before we have shown them the immense Love of God. As John says "We love because He first loved us." The Holiness of God is nothing at all to be trifled with. There is no excusing sin. Perhaps we need to take a much longer stride in reaching people with the Gospel of Jesus. A much longer stride introduces all who are lost to the overwhelming love of God. Once people truly experience the Love of God in all its fullness, they often and most of the time come to repentance. Read the accounts of CS Lewis, John Newton, the woman caught in adultery who met Jesus, just to name three off the top of my head. These people first found the overwhelming love of God, which led them to repentance. Remember Paul - "knowing that it is your kindess Lord that leads us into repentance."
Especially when dealing with children, we must invite them to sit at Jesus' feet and drink in the love of God, who loves us no matter what. Children are born with a sin nature. Because they are born in the Image of God they also have an innate desire to want to know what is right. In loving children as God does we have the priveledge and the responsibility to love them unconditionally and teach them what sin is. But I do not think we begin with kids, especially kids who are unreached and unchurched, with the fact that they are sinners who must find repentance.
It begins with the love of God, and it ends with the love of God in all His holiness.
Thanks Mike. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about beating anyone over the head with their sin, regardless of age. I am, however, talking about calling it what it is and explaining it and its effects in an age appropriate manner. If we don't understand our sin, we will not understand our need for a savior.
I think we often underestimate a child's ability to grasp important Biblical concepts. John Piper says:
"A great hindrance to the salvation and the growth of our children is the weakness of our own grasp of the full range of biblical truth and the unity of the whole counsel of God. I am overwhelmed at what children can absorb and retain when they are repeatedly and systematically and progressively instructed in the great doctrines of the Bible."
I think there is much truth in that.
Phillip Johnson has a wonderful article on the subject entitled: Teaching Your Children Spiritual Truth.
In it he makes a strong case for the importance of sharing the entire gospel with our children. He also lays our 5 principles to follow when teaching children.
http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil//articles/children.html
I believe that it is not overly sensitive to be concerned about the Silly String incident. I believe when we are dealing with the gospel we need to deal with it reverantly. I do not mean that we need to be wearing a three piece suit, but I do mean we need to be aware of the gravity of the situation.
I believe that a wonderful opportunity was presented to the speaker to share gospel truth with his audience and it was squandered.
We as parents are responsible for teaching our children important things they need to know.
One of the things that parents do is teach their children not to speak to strangers.
We have to get across to them the gravity of the situation without unduly terrorizing them.
It is a delicate task, but a task all parents need to undertake.
We may seek advice from our parents, our contemporaries, our church leadership, or trained professionals, but in the end we have to convey this truth to our children.
Failure to convey this truth properly could have horrendous, mortal consequences.
Failure to convey the whole truth of the gospel to our children could have horrendous, eternal consequences.
Which is more important?
(I would like to clarify that in presenting the gospel to others I am merely a tool in the Creator's hands.)
Thanks R.C.
Here's the link for those who may have had trouble accessing it:
Teaching Your Children Spiritual Truth
This is an excellent article. I liked what he says here:
"Often adults—like the woman who taught me the sunbeam song—mistakenly believe an allegory or figure of speech will clarify some great truth. With children, those things often only obscure the truth.
As I mentioned before, children can understand much more than we give them credit for. I also think many times the things we're taught as children, wrong or not, stay with us longer and stronger than the things we learn later in life.
How many hundreds of people are there out there who think they're saved today because, as child they were told Jesus loves them and they held up their hand acknowledging that in VBS? Never mind there is no fruit in their life and never has been, they held up their hand in VBS and a well meaning worker welcomed them to the Kingdom of God.
If we give a complete and thorough (though age appropriate) gospel presentation to children we then don't have so much to undo as they get older.
Of course the final responsibility for leading our children to Christ rests with us as parents, not with their coaches or Sunday School teachers. One hopes that those leaders reinforce what is taught at home but if not, we still have the responsibility to ensure that our children are well and truly taught.
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