In the last sharing we talked about how few young people are willing to serve full time. One of the reasons for this is that the church has not played its role to teach and to train. We also talked about another possible reason which is the role of parents. Today we will talk about the third possible reason.
The third reason is about whether the young people themselves are committed, especially those who wish to serve full-time. Many of the youth leaders in the church who are passionate in serving, do they read the Bible diligently? Do they pray earnestly? Do they read spiritual books frequently? What kind of quality can we expect from our young Christians?
It is a pity that there are many young Christians who are called to serve full time, but after they have just graduated, they are already in debt. They will buy a new car with a 7 to 9 year loan, buy an Apple phone by instalment, and also prefer designer clothes and expensive restaurants or cafes. Such young people who are full of loans have to pay the car loan, the mortgage loan, and the credit card interest, and even if they are willing to serve full time, they are overwhelmed by all these financial commitments. This situation is directly related to the fact that the church does not have a systematic, continuous and comprehensive discipleship programme to teach the youth.
Not only the youth, the Sunday school in the church is often just a matter of getting some textbooks from the bookstore and assigning a few teachers to teach them. Whether or not these teachers are trained is usually not a concern, as it is good enough that someone is willing to teach. Under such circumstances, these children usually just attended Sunday school by colouring and listening to stories. The church has neither the time nor the ability to teach these children in a systematic way. This makes the church miss the opportunity to teach the children to love God passionately when they are still young. What can we expect from these children when they grow up? Are they going to be committed Christians?