A Strategic Look at the Faith of France’s Youth

This is the third part in a continuing series on the Youth of Western Europe, with a focus on France. See below for links to the first two parts of this series.

The political animosity of France seems not only to be directed at the U.S., but also at the Christianity it sees portrayed by the U.S. This unfortunate association, combined with historical milieu of the country, as well as its confusing religious history – where Christianity fought itself more than it ministered to its people – have led to the alarming state of lostness among French youth. They must be reached with the Gospel in this generation! To have such a highly technological and ostensibly educated society’s youth reject Christ would erode the “progress” of the last centuries. If the church cannot keep its children and address this situation in every country, it cannot claim to have reached a people.

According to the 24-7prayer.com website,

“80% of the youth population of France have never even seen or held a Bible!”

Couple that with France’s long history of persecuting religious minorities, and one can see how any authentic, Bible-believing fellowship that emerges could easily receive the moniker of “cult.” Although the evangelical community in France is greater than 500,000, most of those are over the age of 40. In fact, it is reported that there are more full-time occultic practitioners in France than there are Christian workers (24/7prayer.com reports 50,000 occultic practitioners)!

“Of France’s 60 million inhabitants, about 40 million consider themselves Catholic, but only about 5 million attend church each month. Up to 5 million are Muslim and 650,000 are Jewish. One million are Protestants; about 650,000 of them belong to the often austere and liturgical Reformed and Lutheran churches, but only a small proportion attend church regularly,” reported a February 2005 Christianity Today article.

The article claims that there are the 350,000 evangelical churchgoers in France, but most French are deists, agnostics, and atheists ripe for a renewed effort of the church.

Scripture exhorts the church to preach the Gospel to all nations, but it is not a one-time event. Our Lord obviously meant to “keep preaching” the Gospel – not to drop a Bible bomb on a culture and then move on, thinking the task was done. Historically the church has done a better job of exposing people to the Gospel than it has curing them of paganism. All these factors lead to the need to re-examine our “unreached peoples” classification and press forward in the understanding that we must make disciples and not reap decisions from the nations. The youth of France are in desperate need of the transforming power of the Gospel and to be reached with its life-giving truth.

What’s at stake

In this continuing series, we’ve been looking at the issue of leaving your church. With the advent of the popular, mall-like “megachurch” of the 1980s, the American culture has seen the continuing growth and rise of large, trendy churches seeking after relevance across the country. It’s now somewhat hip to be a church planter, and new congregations “launch” after mass mailouts and focus groups, often with several hundred (at times over 1000) strangers showing up for a first service. All this takes place in the overall context of Christianity in the States declining.

Studies tell us that “The proportion of the [American] population that can be classified as Christian has declined from 86% in 1990 to 77% in 2001.”1 In 2008, the number dropped to 76%.

Here are some other disturbing observations:

• Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church—half of what the pollsters report.
• American church attendance is steadily declining.
• Only one state is outpacing its population growth. Hawaii, where 13.8% of the state’s population (1.3 million) regularly attends church, was the only state where church attendance grew faster than its population growth from 2000 to 2004. (However, church attendance in Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee—all of which have higher percentages of church attendees than Hawaii—was close to keeping up with population growth in the respective states.)
• Mid-sized churches are shrinking; the smallest and largest churches are growing.
• Established churches—40 to 190 years old—are, on average, declining.
• The increase in churches is only 1/4 of what’s needed to keep up with population growth.
• In 2050 (if trends continue), the percentage of the U.S. population attending church will be almost half of what it was in 1990.2

What’s my morbid point? Simply put, there are better things to be doing than looking for a better church for you. It is not a time to be shopping for a church that appeals to you or the needs of your family. It is a time to gently and graciously help those who have not confessed Christ as Lord to surrender their lives in wholehearted obedience to Him.

It is an act of allegiance and submission when you give your heart and life to Jesus Christ as Lord. Your confession of sins and glad reception of salvation from God through Christ’s death and resurrection is not for the ultimate goal of comfort in religious gathering. The ultimate goal of our salvation, in fact, is not about us.

Rather, our salvation brings honor and glory to the Father for His indescribable mercy. Our lives are meant to exalt Him, and our salvation and eternal life in Him are reflective of His love and kindness.

We should be seeking to lead others to Him, not consumed with whether our churches meet our needs for activities, programs and social life. Before you think I advocate an evangelically busy church, I will expound more on the importance of us being the church in later posts. For now, however, I simply say that we must be extremely careful to not make “church” about us.

Amid concerns of a church lacking certain programs for your family, styles of music or of the teaching not being “meaty” enough, please realize that there’s more at stake than the whether there’s steak.

To be continued…

Notes

1. Religious identification in the U.S.: How American adults view themselves, ReligiousTolerance.org

The Blacksburg schools pickle

If you haven’t been following the drama, tension and amazing craziness that has resulted from the collapse of the Blacksburg High School gym earlier this year, it’s a good time to jump in. It’s about to take some strange plot turns.

Since February, the students and staff of Blacksburg High School have faced and defeated what seemed insurmountable obstacles. They relocated, took things in stride as much as they could, and graduated the class of 2010 amid much fanfare. However, all the details and headaches for students, faculty and families of coordinating education and family around a 2:30-7:30 p.m. school day have taken a huge toll.

Most of Blacksburg associated with the schools have been holding their breath in hope that the high school would be able to be move back to their building this fall. The debris from the gym collapse sat for months, with no overt progress.

Suddenly, a bombshell dropped last week, and due to last week’s revelation that the high school will not be able to be used this fall, the latest proposals by the Mongomery County School Board are simply to allow a takeover of the Blacksburg Middle School by the high school and relocate the middle school students and faculty somewhere else. This makes no sense whatsoever to me.

However, there is no great solution, and perhaps the county school board and administration have finally realized the need for cooperative decision making and input from the community. They’ve called community meetings for this Monday and Tuesdays at 3:00 and 7:00 at BMS and CMS (Christiansburg Middle).

I’ve included the news release from the county schools administrative office as well as a response to the proposed solutions from the Blacksburg Middle School staff. It makes one wonder whether the school staffs are being consulted in these important and significant decisions.

There are also a couple of survey links below that you can respond to.

Letter from the Montgomery County Public Schools office:

NEWS RELEASE June 16, 2010
Montgomery County Public Schools Announce Community Meetings Regarding Facility Plans for Blacksburg StudentsOn Feb. 13, 2010, the gymnasium collapsed at Blacksburg High School. Although fortunately no one was injured, the daily schedules of students, parents, families, teachers and staff have faced upheaval as the school had to be closed for demolition and investigation into the cause of the collapse. The patience and support exhibited by everyone in our community have truly been amazing during this time of uncertainty and inconvenience.

School administrators, community leaders and many others are working closely with the School Board to plan for the 2010-2011 school year. As the safety analysis of the classroom building is not yet complete, a return to the BHS campus in the fall appears unlikely. There are currently several options under consideration for housing the approximately 1,200 BHS students and staff this coming school year. These options will be shared with the community at meetings on June 21 and 22, with the goal of making a final recommendation by July 6 for housing BHS students.

OPTIONS

• Blacksburg Middle School (BMS) houses grades 9-12 on a traditional schedule. Old Christiansburg Middle School houses middle school students (grades 6, 7 and 8).
• Christiansburg Middle School (CMS) operates on a unified schedule with grades 6, 7 and 8 from the Christiansburg area and grades 6 and 7 from the Blacksburg attendance area; Blacksburg Middle School facility will house Blacksburg students in grades 8-12.

In addition, other options are currently under review and will be shared as feasibility evaluations are completed.

COMMUNITY MEETINGS

• Monday, June 21, Blacksburg Middle School Auditorium, 3 and 7 p.m.
• Tuesday, June 22, Christiansburg Middle School Auditorium, 3 and 7 p.m.

For those who are unable to attend these meetings, comments may be sent to the School Administration Office at the address above or e-mailed to http://forms.mcps.org/bhs_input.htm.

A response from the Blacksburg Middle School staff:

An Opportunity for Excellence

Our community has proven numerous times that we are resilient and committed to our children and each other. This is just another opportunity to not only persevere but to look to improve on our educational ideas and environments.

• We feel the tragedy for our BHS community should not be turned into a double tragedy by displacing our BMS community. The focus is to support the needs of the faculty and students of BHS as they cope with this crisis. To do this, we need to create an educational environment for all students impacted that best meets their developmental and academic needs in the short term and can benefit our district’s educational progress in the future.
• As professionals we should see this as an opportunity for educational improvement. If we use a proactive thought process with a focus on long-term implications and enduring solutions, opportunities will become apparent. It is imperative to address this problem with paramount consideration for the educational needs of all students involved. Long-term educational objectives and implications should drive the decision, not capacity numbers or athletics, both of which can be solved through alternative physical arrangements.
• A decade ago members of the BMS and CMS [Christiansburg Middle School] communities collaborated to select the building design utilized in the two new middle schools. At BMS we use this specialized physical environment to foster important tenets of the middle school concept addressing the unique developmental and instructional needs of young adolescents. These buildings feature separate hallways for each grade level subdivided into smaller areas for academic teams, a design that helps middle school educators meet the needs of middle school students and builds smaller learning communities within a large school. The environment is actually used as a teacher. Our space supports teaming, inclusion, flexible grouping, collaboration, and integrated curriculum which are all essential components of a strong middle school program. Additionally, family involvement in the education of their children is an essential characteristic of a successful middle school. This becomes problematic if our school is not located in our community.
• Current enrollment at BHS is 1,117 and BMS is 883. The difference in enrollment is 234 students. OCMS, with a capacity of 775, is not adequate for either school population. Therefore, relocating either school would require extensive modifications and mobile units so all costs must be considered.
• Although BMS has a capacity of 1200 students, it was not designed to house four grade levels. It is a middle school designed to house three grade levels. The BMS campus cannot support the entire BHS program.
• Remaining efficient is crucial in the final decision of the placement. We want this plan to have positive long term effects on all impacted in our division. Customizing a building to meet the high school needs is necessary. It would be beneficial to utilize a building that can benefit from this expense after the high school has left the facility. OCMS fits this description because of the alternative high school programs that would re-inhabit the facility. Customizing BMS to support BHS involves spending scarce funds on modifications that will require subsequent funding to restore BMS to its original state once BHS has its own facility.
• If BMS were moved to OCMS there would also be costs for customizing this facility to meet our needs as a middle school. OCMS would need to be greatly modified to meet our teaming, technology, and instructional program needs. The cost of relocating two schools and seven grade levels to provide for their academic needs compared to the cost of housing one school with four grade levels, which is already displaced, must be considered. Furthermore, any money invested in any facility should continue to benefit the students of MCPS long after the temporary housing needs of BHS are resolved.
• During the shared occupancy, the facilities at BMS did not meet the needs of students enrolled in Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. In addition, they were concerned that their students’ ability to compete well in VICA and other such competitions would be affected. These competitions lead to opportunities for post-high school education and employment. This group of students is often overlooked in the rush to provide academic and athletic needs.
• The challenge this crisis presents provides an opportunity to look to research-based education reform for innovative ideas to enhance the educational offerings of MCPS. For example, research shows that 9th grade is a pivotal year for students as they transition from middle school to the changing demands of high school. The idea of a Ninth Grade Academy, which separates the 9th grade from the traditional high school, addresses this critical transition by creating a smaller learning community which provides more structure and direction for students. An option like this would open up new ways to think about a space for BHS students. We have facilities in our district such as the OBMS annex building that could house a 9th grade class. This would leave only grades 10-12 relocating to OCMS.

Surveys

The Youth of Western Europe: Historical Background to a Lost Faith

This is the second part of a series that is focusing on the youth of western Europe. The series is subtitled Ignorant Heirs of a Reformation and focuses on the youth of France.

HISTORICAL
Known for its rich history and culture, France has long been a leader and influencer of world affairs. For the purpose of this paper, only the history since the Middle Ages will be considered. In the last 1000 years, however, France has been the epicenter of religious strife, political upheaval, invasion, occupation, torture, and political struggle.

It has been a culture with a long history of religious ambiguity, corruption and deep tension. It was in Avignon, France in the 1200s that a dual papal battle began, with one Pope located in Avignon and the other located in Rome. After the errant leadership of Pope Boniface VIII, the French king Phillip IV manipulated the church and had the capital of the Catholic Church moved to Avignon in 1305. So began a long “captivity of the church” as the French king used his influence over the pope during a particularly weak and corrupt era n church history to enrich his kingdom and fund his ongoing war with England. Pope John XXII, installed by Phillip’s influence, devoted his whole tenure as pontiff to enriching the papal treasury (and subsequently, Phillip’s war coffins). It wasn’t until 1415 that a single Pope was finally elected by the illustrious and imposing Council of Constance – Pope Martin V.

By this time, however, incredible damage had been done to the cause of Christ through a multitude of Crusades, religious infighting and greed among the church’s leaders. A generation of Reformers arose to debate the church’s error, defend the Gospel, and describe the true meaning of church to an apathetic culture. Ironically, the same Council of Constance that created the end of the papal battle (in 1415, there were actually three men who were called as Pope!), also named John Wycliffe a heretic and ordered him burned.

In the next 400-500 years, Europe was the site of such great spiritual earthquakes, with the likes of John & Charles Wesley, Martin Luther, and John Calvin – that many considered Europe entirely Christianized. The discovery of the American continent and its emergence as a world power suddenly shifted attention away from France, allowing some of the religious “dust” to settle. It settled thick. Generation after generation would remember the fallacies and sheer outrage of acts of the “church.” Even with the spirit of reform in the air, to many outsiders, it just looked like a reorganization.

In the 20th century, Catholicism reigned in France, but it was nominal at best. France was embattled by Germany, invaded, and occupied in the early part of the century. It never seemed to recover its sense of national identity. Once a staunch ally of the United States and its old rival, England, in the last 30 years, France has leaned steadily leftward politically. Recently, France became the subject of debate among American political conservatives as it refused to endorse or help in the war on terror in Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, upon closer examination, a people once known for their arrogance now considers Americans to be supremely arrogant as anti-U.S. attitudes continued to grow, particularly among the young people of France.

Because of the well-publicized faith of U.S. President George W. Bush, many of the young people in France identify America’s “arrogance” with its religion and have turned their back on the faith of their fathers – which in most instances never had a chance to establish itself either.

The Youth of Western Europe: Ignorant Heirs of the Reformation

The following is a series that was formerly created as a paper for the Perspectives class. I went through training to be a coordinator for this excellent, missions-intensive seminar, and we were required to write a paper upon completion.

I chose to focus my paper mainly on the youth of France. I took three years of French in high school and have always been drawn to the country. Here’s hoping that this series will provoke thought, prayer, and strategic mission effort toward the youth of Europe and specifically, France.

Western Europe is one location on earth that many would never consider as having “unreached people” living within it. The likes of John Calvin, Martin Luther, William Wilberforce, and other great Christian leaders and reformers are inscribed on the pages of history books and church cathedrals across the continent. However, the youth of France today, who will be the focus of this paper, have rarely seen or even held a Bible!

Many would say that to classify anyone in Western Europe as “unreached” is ridiculous. However, within the youth population of France, there are dozens of other ethnic people groups, each desperately needing a witness of the Lord Jesus among them. While other missiologists continue to publicize and hype the “10/40 Window” to the church, unreached people exist in historically Christian countries. This unnecessary overemphasis may be the result of a man-centered approach to the interpretation of Jesus’ words in Matthew 24.14 where Jesus said that the gospel of the kingdom must be preached to the whole world and “then the end will come.” That one passage has shaped and formed the strategies of hundreds of American mission agencies in the last 20 years and has resulted in the neglect of emphasis on other key influential areas, particularly Western Europe and France.

The youth in this powerfully influential area of the world are at crucial spiritual crossroads, and to abandon a concerted, strategic focus on them may set the church back even as it pours resources elsewhere. In fact, to neglect the evangelization of the youth culture of France or Western Europe will eventually create the most influential non-Christian group of countries in our world. The purpose of this series is to identify the urgent spiritual needs of the youth of France and to develop a strategy for reaching them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

[Above image taken from worldmap.org. Source.]

Decelerating

Within the last week, we’ve sold our 2002 Toyota Sequoia, and we’ve bought a 2001 Toyota Prius. We are decelerating in our desire to save on gas and have no car payments. It’s become pretty apparent in the last months that it’s doable but difficult to be a one-car family in Blacksburg/Christiansburg – especially with kids that have softball and baseball games in different towns on the same day.

The Prius is pretty remarkable in that it has gotten 45+ mpg in just the few days we’ve driven it. We’re in process of replacing a fender on it since it was in a wreck previously, but overall, we’re extremely happy with it. The purchase has made me rather venturesome as we begin shopping for another car.  My new car litmus test is that it needs to be in the $3000 neighborhood, have good consumer reviews, and, well, drive.

After our recent purchase, I’ve even found myself looking at salvage cars on Ebay. Do any of you have experience with cars like that?

iNeed iNsight about iPhone vs iPad

We’re almost ready to pull the trigger on an iPad at our house. Carolyn and I are going to “share” one as our 18th anniversary present. But we’re selling stuff first.

Here’s where we need help… With the new data plans from AT&T announced this week for iPhones and iPads, should we:
1. Get rid of one iPhone and get iPad 3G data plan
2. Keep both iPhones and get iPad WIFI with no 3G
3. Get iPad 3G AND get a Verizon mifi which would give us Internet for up to 5 devices (we could also discoonect an iPhone)
4. Jump down, turn wound, pick a bale of cotton.
5. Other

Go.