Faith At Home, Jubilate Deo Article
Upcoming Faith At Home Seminar
Recently I was asked how as a Sr. Pastor I could spend my time with Directors of Christian Education learning of and promoting the faith at home methodology of Christian faith transformation? Didn’t I have more pressing priorities with which to concern myself? It was their thought that this issue of discipleship was more to be in the hands of the directors of Christian education. My response was that there is not a more important issue than this. That my job, my call, my passion from the Lord is lives that are being healed, redeemed, set free and transformed by a growing and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. I don’t do church to grow the club. I shepherd peoples that they might experience the life that Jesus Christ purchased for them with His own blood.
The faith at home methodology of Christian life transformation is Biblically based. It is God’s created order in Genesis 1:28, Deuteronomy, chapter 6, celebrated in Psalm 78 and used by Jesus with His disciples. The difficulty is, it is a reversal of the paradigm of Christian education under which we were all nurtured. We have all been reared in “age segregated” education. We have been trained to design our buildings, our programs, and our pastors to encourage “church centered” discipleship and now we’re saying, “wait, stop, reverse it all.” You’ve got to be kidding? It feels like an upheaval in our church lives, because it is. It can’t be a new program. It must be a revival. I have been so touched by God’s heart for this revival of discipleship that I am willing to risk my ministry and my life for it.
To every Senior Pastor in our diocese I encourage you to bring your team to the Faith At Home Church Seminar, to be held at Christ Church, Mt. Pleasant, January, 30th. “Come and see. I will not tell you this is easy. I won’t tell you it is fun. I will tell you that you will see fruit that when it grows it lasts. I am tired of hearing parents with adult children say, “But I did everything right. My child was in Sunday School, served as an acolyte, and even went to EYC and yet now, they don’t darken the church door.” Yes, making the shift to the faith at home is hard, but it is not as hard as hearing that.
To every Mom and Dad I encourage you to come to the Family Extreme Makeover, Friday night, January 29th at Saint James, James Island. This is a two – three hour intensive training of practical, easy to implement models and strategies that will make your home the center of faith transformation, not just for your children, but for you all.