The Killing Joke

Stop me if you’ve heard this one…

When talking about our youth group’s Sunday night Bible studies and why it’s important to hold them, a parent says to me; “We have been unable (despite many efforts) to get sustained adult interest in evening bible studies at this congregation. Why should the kids be different than their parents?”

In other words should, the parent asks, (ok, breathe deep… exhale) should we even hold Bible studies since most of the adults simply don’t want attend one themselves.

Yes we should, period.

And the reasons we should is so that not only do these kids can see that church is where we go as a community of believers and that theology and Scripture is fun to study, but to put it bluntly, we don’t want your kids picking up your bad habits that lead their happy selves to think that “church stuff” is only done one hour a week on the way to Sunday brunch at Applebee’s.

Gathering together to discuss theology and Scripture and hearing Jesus speak to us through His called servants is fun. The real question the parent needs to ask is why the adults don’t want to gather for a Sunday night or midweek Bible study and not the other way around.

I don’t know of any parent who thinks that if their kids don’t like school they should just stay home and play with their Xbox. Of course the parent is going to demand the kid go to school, as they should. Shouldn’t God’s Word and churchly stuff be placed at least as high on the list as the local school system?

Arguing that the kids probably don’t want to go to a Bible study on a Sunday night so therefore it’s a waste of time to even offer it may have been said half jokingly, but it just wasn’t funny.