Swimming Upstream

February 22, 2022 Jim Musser

There was an amusing Super Bowl commercial this year featuring Larry David as the skeptic of all skeptics when it came to new ideas. He was skeptical of the wheel, coffee, the US Constitution, the lightbulb, and the Sony Walkman. He was also skeptical of the latest of inventions—crypto currency, which was the purpose behind the commercial.

Swimming upstream against the normal currents of the culture is always difficult and there are many skeptics, as the commercial highlighted. I remember when I first saw students walking on campus with cell phones in the late 90’s thinking to myself, why in the world do they need a cell phone? A few years later when cellphones began to contain cameras, I remember a student scoffing at the idea.

New ideas often promote excitement, but there are plenty of skeptics around trying to quash them as impractical or useless. To those with new ideas, it often seems one is swimming upstream against powerful currents going in the opposite direction.

Jesus I am sure felt this as he proclaimed that the Kingdom of God had come and described what it looked like. As I wrote two weeks ago about pouring new wine into old wineskins, Jesus pointed out that the new wine needed new wineskins to accommodate it. In a culture steeped in tradition, almost everyone was skeptical in the beginning at this new idea. As time went on, it was embraced by a few but rejected by many.

In my new book, Letters from Downstream, I am advocating a new approach for the church in raising up children spiritually. In reality, it is a very old approach, but the church has been doing it a different way for so long that it will appear as a new idea. I am advocating to embrace once again the biblical view that the church is to make disciples of adults (Matthew 28:18-20) and that parents are to raise their children to know and love God (Deuteronomy 6:6-7; Deuteronomy 11:18-21). Right now, we have it inverted. Most parents look for churches that have strong children’s and youth programs. And churches provide them in order to attract families. The focus then becomes the kids rather than the parents. The result is the very ones the Lord instructed to teach their children by words and deeds lack the discipleship in their own lives to be equipped to do it. Thus, the most effective disciplers of children, the ones that children most easily learn from, are replaced by professional pastors or volunteers outside of the family. And the parents’ discipleship is relegated to sermons and classes.

Churches have lost their way over the past 40-50 years where the emphasis on discipleship has waned and the emphasis on church growth has replaced it. My book calls them to return to their biblical role of discipleship, particularly of adults. I am expecting the currents to be strong against this. As in Jesus’ day, well-established systems are in place, and the expectations that go along with them, both from pastoral staff and church participants. Change is always difficult, particularly when that change impacts you personally. If, as a parent, you are accustomed to sending your kids to children’s programs and youth group meetings with the idea this will ground them spiritually, and then someone comes along suggesting the spiritual formation of your children is primarily your responsibility, that can create fear and resistance. If you are a pastor, and someone suggests your primary job according to the Scriptures is equip believers for the work of the Kingdom (Ephesians 4:11-13) rather than preaching, administrating church affairs, and other duties that most churches expect, there will likely be defensiveness from both pastors and congregants because that is not what most of us expect from the local church. We congregants have our needs and the church is to meet them. We pastors have been trained to preach sermons and we’re also expected to grow our churches through that preaching and the programs we develop.

I don’t think it is a stretch to compare the modern church with the Jewish synagogue system of the 1st Century, not certainly in what it taught but rather how it operated. Many of the Jewish leaders believed the teachings of Jesus, and later of the Apostles, threatened their power, authority, and the way they operated. Many churches today, very large and very small, operate within a system they have learned and developed and which serves everyone, at least on the surface. Try to change it at your peril.

I write in my book of Chris Galanos, the pastor of a megachurch in Texas. They had more than 10,000 people coming each week. When Galanos and the leadership felt the Lord moving them to a disciple-making model, thousands left the church. What they were calling their congregants to do was to invest in people for the sake of the Gospel. Be trained to know and share the gospel, then go out among the poor and hurting in their community to love on them, first through praying for them, and then helping meet real needs in their lives. The goal was to find hearts that were open to following Jesus and then starting small groups, not at the church, but in their neighborhoods. A very New Testament principle was rejected by thousands.

I am so thankful for local churches that are responding to the lack of discipleship in their midst and strategizing to correct this flaw of the American Church. It is much needed, particularly when it comes to young people. They desperately need role models at home of what it looks like to follow and obey Jesus. As Galanos does in his book, so am I trying from a different perspective to do in mine—raise awareness and point the way back to main purpose of the Church: to make disciples. I may be swimming upstream against the church culture, but it is well worth the effort to see young people coming to universities not looking for a replacement for their youth groups, but rather ready to be ambassadors for Jesus among their peers on campus, loving them and demonstrating how much God loves them.