November 16, 2006 Cityreaching Conference Call
Topic: Cityreaching: The Next Generation,
Guest: Pastor Matthew Watts
Glenn welcomed callers and asked Montie Ralstin from Boise, Idaho to open the call with prayer.
Jarvis announced the next “third Thursday” cityreaching conference call on December 21. The guest will be John Perkins of the John Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development. Please invite others you know who might be interested in this call.
Our next face-to-face meeting of the City Impact Roundtable (CIR) will be April 19-21 in El Paso, TX, encompassing also the Juarez, Mexico and Las Cruces, NM region. Glenn Barth is CIR Convener. If you haven’t received information about it, go to www.cityreaching.com or email info@cityreaching.com. The host city 70% Hispanic; there will be an opportunity to take a day tour into Juarez, Mexico to see how the church is operating there as well as seeing how it is working together in El Paso. Reid Carpenter, Council of Leadership Foundations, and Eric Swanson, who wrote The Externally Focused Church will be keynote speakers. Each will speak to a key cityreaching principle, and we will flesh out the principles in city stories, so it will be very practical.
There is an early bird discount through Jan. 15, and a great rate at the Hilton in El Paso. Someone shared last year that it seems like every year, God improves the CIR. I think this one will be the best yet, and we are already working on 2008.
Jarvis: This is an interesting period in history. I am thrilled that God has allowed Rev. Matthew Watts to be on the call today. I just read in the Jackson, MS newspaper that 11 young people were arrested for releasing pepper spray in the mall. Many got sick from the spray. The paper said two of these young people had been arrested for indecent exposure in 2005. As they got older, some of the things that had been smoldering have grown to become societal issues. If we are going to see the kind of transformation we want, children and youth are an important part of that. Rev. Watts came out of the corporate world. A lot of cityreachers have. Matthew is a Civil Engineer by experience. He moved to the Senior Pastoral role at Grace Bible Church. He is also Founder and President of Hope Community Development Assn. He spoke at the Mission America (MAC) Annual Meeting in St. Louis last month, and God used him to stir up interest among those who were present.
Matthew: Thank you for your kind words. It was a privilege to be a part of the Mission America meeting.
Glenn: At the MAC Annual Meeting, you identified the greatest neglect of the church as evangelization of young people and children. Young people have not been embraced, nurtured and discipled by the church. When we think of the importance of the coming generation and where they get their values, how can the church disciple embrace, nurture, and disciple children and youth in their communities?
Matthew: Someone once said, “he who influences the children controls the children.” I think it is the most critical issue facing the church today. Our society is facing the most vile, wicked and debased people who have access to our children through DVDs, 24/7 TV, the internet and cell phones. We as a church have a great challenge to reach them, and then disciple them against these competing influences. If we don’t, we will continue to see decline in our society. If their values aren’t determined by a biblical view, they will be influenced by the world.
Jarvis: Matthew, you made a statement that was startling, shocking. You might have been quoting someone. You also said that the most dangerous society you can live in is one that is free where children have no discipline. What are the ramifications of that for our cities?
Matthew: In a free society, by definition, the society has to self-govern. The founding fathers understood that. They were in concurrence when they said a free republic could only be sustained by a self governing people with a religious basis that offered a transcendent _______. When young people aren’t disciplined, you can’t control the children. By definition, everyone is free, so children need to be under tutelage of parents and other authorities until maturity. Without that, they start to live out their base nature, sinful desires and passions, stirred up at earlier ages. So you see the culture impacted by immorality, sexual diseases, pregnancy, a drug culture that has been driven by children, and a juvenile system filled with children. It unravels the culture, the society in which these children live..
Glenn: One of the things you brought out in St. Louis is school based ministry, mentoring in the church. Tell us what you are doing in this regard in Charleston
Matthew: In the historical context, the church in America has been accommodated by the government. It has been given preferential treatment, shown favoritism. Therefore the church had access to the institutions as they emerged in society, including the educational system, the great universities, We had access to expose children to the gospel until 1962.
Glenn: Schools were part of the culturation process.
Matthew: Yes, it was considered second only to the home. Home, church and school. Schools supported the family and the church. With the retreat of the church from the public school system, there is very little presence of the Christian faith in the public school system. If we don’t win this battle, the schools are more than educational systems; they are social systems where values are being shaped with peer influence there.
Glenn: What are your doing through Hope Community Development Assn. in the schools and through your church?
Hope Community Development Association partners with Grace Bible Church. We have mobilized some of our staff, others volunteer. We have identified 3 schools we will target and provide mentoring to youth whom the school has identified. We use a content-based curriculum, topics my mother and father didn’t teach me. We want to partner with parents, build relationships, do bridge building relationships intentionally, winning children to Christ and bringing their parents to the church. I baptized several children recently and will baptize more next Sunday who have been reached through this outreach.
Jarvis: Why are children and youth so important to the cityreaching process?
Matthew: Not only are they the church of tomorrow, they are the church of today. They bring energy, passion, and excitement that the church needs to give it vitality. Churches need to reach the heart of cities and the hearts of children so they can be discipled and become a part of efforts to reach that city for Christ. The children play a major role in any successful movement.
Jarvis: One follow-up question, not a negative, but to the point. Where do you place the blame for what’s happening to our young people - violence, drop outs, pregnancy, disease? Where is the ultimate blame?
Matthew: I think it’s shared blame. Ultimately, the root cause is fatherlessness. This is a generation where 70% of minorities are born out of wedlock, divorce is increasing. The foundation is being destroyed. The family is the foundation. As it crumbles, it metastasizes to the institution, so the schools and churches become dysfunctional and ineffective. As we turn this tide by the power of the Holy Spirit, the church shares the blame, because it never had a comprehensive strategy to win children. It hoped the parents would bring the children so the church could evangelize the. We need to help parents build godly Christian families.
Glenn: If Glenn Jeffrey is still on the line … I’m part of a group called Life Coaches. I mentor a young person whose father has been in prison. I think the opportunity we have as Christians is to enter these church-based mentoring programs and become involved, especially with fatherless children in our society. I’d love to have Glenn Jeffrey comment on that. As we go to question and answer, if you’d like to ask a question, press the number 6 to speak.
Question and Answer
Glenn Jeffrey, Minneapolis, Life Coaches for Kids: I’m very interested in what you are saying, Matthew. One of the things we are looking for right now is additional tools to introduce a child to faith and help them begin a life of discipleship. We’ve been developing some of our own materials, but we would love to find other materials.
Matthew: Are you familiar with Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) materials? I would encourage you to look at some of the new material they have developed. We have found it high quality and effective in introducing a child to Christ and discipling them. We think they have some of the best stuff out there.
Tom Boor, Reedsburg, VA: I took position of Pioneer Ministry Coordinator with CEF. I go to a new ministry and try to reach every child in that community. I resonate with everything Pastor Watts has said. I’ve been getting acquainted with the www.cityreaching website, but see nothing on young generations. This working group needs to be functional. CEF has a new set of training DVDs that are very helpful. I would recommend www.CEFonline.com for resource materials.
Matthew: This training is for all the people who teach kindergarten through middle school. It takes them through a 30-hour training course, not only how to lead a child to Christ, but how to teach the Bible.
Tom Boor: Good News Clubs are one-hour a week clubs for children. About 80% of children of any community are unchurched. We are trying to establish these clubs in every elementary school. From the website you could find a local person who would help with training, get teams from churches trained. Churches could perhaps adopt an elementary school, and go in one day a week for an hour after school.
Glenn: I see that the www.CEFonline.com website has training materials, a bookstore, full-orbed opportunity for people to get material. It seems to me that the website is there to mobilize people. It’s going to take people, adults to reach the children. Organizations like CEF and Life Coaches are helping to do this. Check out www.LifeCoaches.org and learn more about what they do.
Eric Bents, Omaha: A brief report from the field. We are linked with sister city Council Bluffs, and last month had remarkable occurrence with a denomination that does basic life skills in schools. Council Bluffs had them go to every high school in the city during the day, followed by an evening event that was evangelistic. Out of 5000 high schoolers in the city, 1000 students came forward at that meeting. We are so encouraged. Obviously there will be follow up. The only tipping point we can identify is there was a critical mass of churches that worked together to reach every high school in the city. Be encouraged.
Glenn Jeffrey: I’ve been looking at CEF website. I think the materials look great for group activities, but I wonder if any on the call is familiar with resources that would be adaptable for one-on-one mentoring with kids where you are trying to introduce to discipleship. That is what we are particularly interested in finding.
Matthew: We have a different philosophy about what mentoring and discipleship is. It’s interesting that Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to get out their Bible or notepad. It was a time of teaching. Look at www.TalksMentoring.org website and talk about issues kids are dealing with. We tend to think that just teaching the Bible will equip them to live the Christian life. Surveys show that in evangelical churches, lifestyles aren’t that different from non-Christians. We aren’t equipping them to face the challenges in their schools, community and social settings. These materials help adults talk about issues kids are dealing with and show how the Bible applies to those issues, that the Bible speaks with contemporary relevance and accuracy. The generation gap in our society is the largest in history. Kids have access to so much information. They have their own culture that many adults aren’t aware of. Discipling helps bridge the gap between. We need to show how the Bible relates to life. www.TalksMentoring.org is built for school based curriculum, juvenile based curriculum. We’ve also developed materials on managing conflict, sexuality, dating, values. We may be resource rich in those areas, but missing materials that specifically help a child begin a relationship with God, and a deeper relationship that influences behavior. The evangelical church has not called children to discipleship, so not much transforms in the process.
That’s why we feel the “talks curriculum” augments what the church is already doing. The key to discipleship is one word: relationship. Relationship with Christ is mediated through the discipler. What kids are starving for is meaningful conversation with adults. Our schedules are packed with activities, hustle and bustle of getting kids to activities. Effective discipleship can only happen when there is an intimate and trusting relationship. When you multiply the hours Jesus spent with his disciples – it would take us about 12 years to spend with a person to equate what Jesus did. Let them interpret their world to you, and the adult give feedback on how the Bible relates to their situation. Show them God is concerned with how they act in school, their school work, the way they socialize, how they recreate; connect with them so they trust us enough to share and interact with them. We know the consequence of certain actions that kids don’t know yet, so we show them from our own life experience .. Discipleship is sharing how God has worked in your life, how God has helped you meet the challenges.
Tom Boor: Let me add to that. In our ministry, especially in summer, we do 5-day clubs. That’s almost totally done by teenagers, so we train teens and college students. Getting them trained and helping them evangelize elementary children is one of our objectives. I’m looking at some of the material out there, like
Battle Cry for a Generation by Ron Luce. He’s talking about teens, but I see children. Barna says a child’s belief system is set by 13. So reaching children and discipling them is key. We have a website for children. The other side is getting them involved in ministry. Train them to be helpers in clubs and outreach events.
Matthew: Yes, we have teens that participate in clubs. What I’m talking about is a strategy for evangelism. We have a lot of programs and resources. But the church doesn’t have a comprehensive strategy for reaching children and teens. CEF probably comes the closest to having a strategy. But it’s more complicated than that. We’re up against a society where ungodly people have the greatest influence on children because they have them most of the time. The public school is so critical because by law children have to be there from ages 5 to 18. Most of the teachers aren’t decadent, but God is left out. The school system is a system – Satan is the god of this world, of a system where God is left out, so Satan rules the day. That’s why we need a presence there; mobilize Christians to be there to be salt and light to this ungodly system. The second system: I would look to find out who is running the athletic system. They have kids 6-8 hours a week. It’s become a godless system. God is not a part of that. It’s not run by God’s people. These kids never get to church or to a CEF club. The next system is the juvenile justice system; 1 million kids enter this system annually. 500,000 are in the foster care system, not exposed to anything we do. We need to penetrate this system. CEF has done a wonderful job. But with 2.2 million people incarcerated in this country, and 1 million appearing in juvenile court each year - many who graduate to our adult incarceration system come from the juvenile system.
There is the social welfare system. And the last one is public housing systems. They have sub-systems, with their own values, morals, and government (councils). The church has to figure out how to penetrate that public housing system to do evangelism and discipleship. I’m talking about the church having a strategic plan to evangelize the children and youth and connect with their parents. I’ve been working for the past 20 years, and realize that this system has more influence than the church.
Glenn: What you have outlined is 4 very complex systems where Christians have not felt comfortable.
When we think of evangelism, and how schools have tried to exclude faith; the juvenile justice system would like to see more mentors, but many of these kids have been abandoned, many even by their own parents. Christians have been reticent to be involved. The local church is too busy with maintenance issues to get involved. We get focused on the growth of our own congregation. Even a mega church is only a small part of the community.. If churches work together, plan together, it’s the city reaching movement that can identify where children need to be reached, and the question becomes how can the cityreaching movement serve the churches by offering outreach in this way? I’m glad that Life Coaches and CED have been represented today. Utilize these resources as well as Matthew’s. Life Coaches would be a helpful resource.
Jarvis: What struck me again is the issue of relationships. That is something the church doesn’t do very well outside of the church. Loving relationships. There is strong documentation; surveys taken by churches recently found that their people rated low in loving relationships. The congregations were shocked. What it revealed was that the church really loves itself on Sunday, but it was incredibly low in loving relationships outside the church. When we talk about reaching children, life on life, the Christian church has lost the art and anointing and passion for right relations. If we are going to see transformation in our cities, the church desperately needs to develop more loving relationships in the outside community. We know transformation won’t just happen – it really will take a Spirit-led joint effort. Charleston, WV is a model. We can learn from that model. We have a model here in Jackson, MS. God is raising us up, more than talk. We need the Spirit to move on the church in revival and moving ways.
Our next Call December 21, 2006. Guest will be Dr. John Perkins of the John Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development. See http://www.jmpf.org for information on the foundation.
Make your reservations for the CIR in El Paso, TX. As we go into Thanksgiving season, Glenn and I share our gratitude for those of you who have been on this call, and all who have been on them so many years.
Jarvis closed in prayer.
