Hey this is Pastor Bill with this short news in focus and this is still off of that May 31st Albert Mueller piece on the Southern Baptist Convention and its future and the numbers don't add up. This is going to be examining his sixth reason or sixth consideration about the numbers not adding up. He says, there's a particular alarm about young people raised by Southern Baptists who fall away. An article by Ryan P. Berg, released by Christianity Today, ran with the headline, Only Half of Kids Raised SBC, Stay So. Berg argues that where the real worry comes is related to a generational shift in American population. Furthermore, in the 1980s and 90s, Southern Baptists could count on a huge majority of their children born and raised in the church to become committed and active members of the congregation as adults. That has eroded over time. Now it's likely that half the children raised in Southern Baptist today will not maintain that identity into adulthood. So again, who cares? Breaking from the article for a second. Who gives a rip? Well, remember the point of the article is that for the first time in 20 some years, the membership of the Southern Baptist Convention has dipped below 15 million. And that's just one of the many troubling statistics. Here's paragraph two of three. Beyond the question of birth rates, what are we doing or not doing with the kids we have? I think the answer to that is direct and straightforward. We have surrendered Sunday school and youth ministry in many of our churches. I am the product of being involved in the local church many hours a week as a young boy and teenager. My frame of reality was largely set by my parents' design, and it was church whenever the church offered an opportunity. And there were many opportunities. Sunday school, youth choir, royal ambassadors, actings for girls. There were weekly youth fellowships, youth meetings, regular retreats. There were wonderful and faithful adult volunteers, as well as faithful youth ministers. And Christian Smith and his research associates found that one of the distinguishing marks of young people who continue in their church participation as adults was that they had developed a warm and trusting relationship with an adult in the church other than their own parents. How many young people in middle school, high school, or college have that experience today? For many children growing up with Christian parents, the priority of the family is told otherwise. Many Christian parents have brought into large cultures portraits of good childhood, complete with incessant sports activities, violin and ballet lessons, and activities perceived to boost a child's eventual college admissions application. Man, I got to break from that and say that is the absolute stinking truth. And he's going to get on to it here in a minute and tell you how. This is the one we're about to go on my, the crawl in your preacher's air. Okay, here we go. When it comes to church activities with children and teenagers, the scariest words might very well be traveling team. I can't believe he wrote it. I didn't say it, folks. I didn't say it. He wrote it. Priorities become clear both on the part of the church and of the parents. Parents can hardly claim shock when their kids grow up and leave what they have never really known. At that point, the opportunity is lost. So I was cautioned about my over the top overbearing tone from my one of my fellow pastors here on these podcasts for fear that I might upset some of you out there. And I would just say that this is just right on. And what you have to decide is whether or not you are going to allow your leadership to do the speaking, or if you're going to just yak and talk about how your kids are just good kids. Oh, they're just great kids. Oh, they're such good kids. When are you going to come to the reality there's a difference between a good kid and a godly kid? When are you going to come to the reality there's a difference between a spirit-filled child and someone who knows what it's like to talk God speak? I mean, how many straight weeks, we talked about this yesterday morning, you might not be completely forsaking the assembly by missing church every now and then for a make-up tournament, but how many times do you need to sign up for a season that you know is going to take your child out of church consecutive Sundays out late Saturday and then Junior gets to decide when he's going to sleep in through small groups, Sunday school and Sunday morning. How long until you're complicit with your children's apostasy? How long? How long before you are no longer offering quality leadership as a Christian? You say, well, we can still go to, even if they grow up and don't become Baptist, which is the point of the three, our three paragraphs, even if they don't stay Southern Baptist, who cares? Yeah. Okay. But what are they replacing it with? Okay. So surrounding ourselves with people who are sports apheliacs, doesn't take care of the situation. Ballet philiacs, idolaters of pageants. My goodness, friends, we've got to wake up to the reality that every now and then an exceptional, you know, vacations happen. But to plan on being gone two, three, four Sundays in a row, you have to understand this is more than just a pastor wanting to control you. This is just numbers now. It's just numbers. It's simple math. If you have comments or questions, post them either on this recording or send me an astigram or maybe an affirmation. Talk to you soon. Bye.