I attended a baptism service yesterday, of a local Baptist church that baptizes only once annually. They had 34 baptismal candidates. As a Christian, this is always a kind of a mixed blessing, because although you rejoice at 34, yet you are discouraged that there are so few for a church of pretty good size. Thirty-four in a whole year is just not a whole lot of people for whom we can count salvation.
But, more discouraging for me, there were almost no adults. Of the 34, only a few were adults or even close to adults (meaning, say, 13 or older). Many were very young, so young that no one can be certain about how much they understand of what they say they believe. People seemed happy, of course, but there were so many children, some too small to even stand in the baptistry waters.
I have never seen statistics on this point, but I wonder how many of the baptisms claimed by baptistic churches are, in fact, young children. Churches turn all their skills at "converting" even six-year-olds, running complex and expensive "children's ministries" filled with special events and entertainment. Speaking generally, I have found that children's Sunday Schools tend to be aimed at entertainment while adult Sunday Schools seem often to be aimed at anti-entertainment. Children's teachers bring excitement, adult teachers are often deadly dull. Children's classes use materials from professional developers, adults tend to use boring materials, all too often.
And children are easily swayed to say they accept Christ. They almost are never asked to explain what it means to "repent and believe," because repentance is too hard for them. They can walk down front and say they "want Christ in their hearts" and we treat them as saved. Everyone gets excited that "such a young life" is now dedicated to God.
So, we are rewarded for our real efforts (the expense and time put into children's teaching) with "real" results (lots of children saying they want to be with Jesus). This encourages us to do even more for children's ministries, and less for adults, so the yearly numbers skew more and more toward children. In the meantime, we lose our impact on the community. We cease to be a part of God's impact on the lives of adults. And, through it all, we have no explanation for why so many of our "converted" children disappear when they become adults. Our churches so often become just a small culture in which we teach our own children to be like us.
So, we end up with many baptisms of very young children and very few baptisms of adults or older children. So many children, so few adults. Is this what we want?
But, more discouraging for me, there were almost no adults. Of the 34, only a few were adults or even close to adults (meaning, say, 13 or older). Many were very young, so young that no one can be certain about how much they understand of what they say they believe. People seemed happy, of course, but there were so many children, some too small to even stand in the baptistry waters.
I have never seen statistics on this point, but I wonder how many of the baptisms claimed by baptistic churches are, in fact, young children. Churches turn all their skills at "converting" even six-year-olds, running complex and expensive "children's ministries" filled with special events and entertainment. Speaking generally, I have found that children's Sunday Schools tend to be aimed at entertainment while adult Sunday Schools seem often to be aimed at anti-entertainment. Children's teachers bring excitement, adult teachers are often deadly dull. Children's classes use materials from professional developers, adults tend to use boring materials, all too often.
And children are easily swayed to say they accept Christ. They almost are never asked to explain what it means to "repent and believe," because repentance is too hard for them. They can walk down front and say they "want Christ in their hearts" and we treat them as saved. Everyone gets excited that "such a young life" is now dedicated to God.
So, we are rewarded for our real efforts (the expense and time put into children's teaching) with "real" results (lots of children saying they want to be with Jesus). This encourages us to do even more for children's ministries, and less for adults, so the yearly numbers skew more and more toward children. In the meantime, we lose our impact on the community. We cease to be a part of God's impact on the lives of adults. And, through it all, we have no explanation for why so many of our "converted" children disappear when they become adults. Our churches so often become just a small culture in which we teach our own children to be like us.
So, we end up with many baptisms of very young children and very few baptisms of adults or older children. So many children, so few adults. Is this what we want?