What Was It Like For You?
What was your life like growing up? I suppose mine was a very typical Apostolic upbringing. My brother and sister and I were brought to church, usually willingly because all our friends were there. We were immersed in all the rules, all the scriptures where they came from, and all the Bible stories in Sunday School. I was the only girl in Sis. Essex’s class who memorized all the Bible verses in the front of the workbooks every quarter. (I can even still quote some of them.) From the time I was about seven – even though I received the Holy Ghost at age six - few days went by that I wasn’t terrified that I was going to miss the rapture.
That was about it for my Christian education, however. We rarely had Bible studies and prayer together at home, and we rarely discussed God, not even as a guy in the sky holding a great big belt. I don’t blame my parents for the lack of Bible studies or home prayer; the church culture of the times gave lip service to the idea of studying with your children at home, but I don’t know of one family that actually did back then. I was much older before I ever heard that Christians were supposed to “have a relationship with God.” Phrases more familiar to me were “praying for your personal miracle,” “getting a revelation of who God is,” “praying through,” or “having a prayer life.” I was in my early twenties and an unwed mother before I actually got a clue about what it means to live for God, but I was one of the lucky ones. Only a handful of my youth group survived the late teen and early twenties to stay in church.
Thank God For the Internet; Without It, Where Would I Be?
Several years after the Internet came along, I realized I could find better and higher quality information and resources on being Apostolic and Christian than I could at church – especially after my requests for Bible studies were turned down. One year of reading ninetyandnine did more to mold my idea of what it means to truly be a Christian than 24 years of attending church. I like to believe in this Age of Information that today’s aspiring Apostolics are getting better and more quality Christian education than I had. And I like to believe that more and more families are studying the word of God and praying together at home.
However, as for all of Christendom, that doesn’t seem to be the case. According to this Agape Press article, teens’ faith doesn’t run too deep. “‘A lot of Christian teens really had not much at all to say about who Jesus was, what grace was,’ the researcher says, adding his team was ‘impressed with how inarticulate and seemingly poorly educated a lot of teenagers are. Even though they said they believe in God and [that] faith is important, they have a hard time explaining what they believe and how faith makes any difference in their life.’”
Yup, that pretty much describes me as a teenager! I could have rattled off a few Oneness scriptures and Acts 2:38, but grace? Faith? Sanctification? Redemption? Justification? Regeneration? You might as well have been reading me the Bible in the original Greek.
What was your life like growing up?
Update: This article from BeliefNet highlights a great many positives of teen faith as well as featuring some interesting dialogue about the article.
Questions, comments, concerns? E-mail me! I reserve the right to quote you unless you ask otherwise.
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