The Sunday Scare Hour

The day I dreaded arrived today, when some Sunday School staff/children’s church worker came up to me and informed me that my 7 year old son had gotten “saved”.  He then put him on the spot to describe this life changing event to me at which point he looked at me with a “dazed and confused” look.  Now to some parents, this might have been a joyous occasion to hear of their son's salvation.  But to me, it was one of my worst nightmares.  Here is why.

The arrogance in our evangelism is alarming!  Is it God’s design for Dad and Mom to instruct, read the Bible to, and discuss biblical matters with their children?  Yes.  But all of the sudden, in children’s church or Sunday school, workers get this thing in their head that the children are there for them to push for a decision on spiritual matters and eternal salvation without even discussing matters with the parent.  

As if they know the child, or have anything to do with him aside from asking him questions and prompting him to raise his hand.  They view it as “God brought them to me.”  It’s a twisted view on the providence of God.

I asked the young zealous man how the salvation of my son came about.  He gave me the spiel, which consisted of something along the lines of asking the children if they lie, (they said yes), then I asking them if they believed Jesus died for them because of their sins (lying), to which most 7 year old church kids also said yes.  

A show of hands was requested, and my son and another answered that they didn’t know if they would go to heaven.  So they were taken out of the class into a segregated room with this young man, who I do not know anything about.  Then he asked them to repeat this prayer, which is to say, ask Jesus into your heart.  I was mortified!  

I saw the youth in this young man, and tried to have some grace so I held my tongue.  My initial thought was to quiz him as to what he actually covered with my son, and how long it took to do so.  But no, Mr. Freakin' nice guy that I am, I held my tongue.  I mean after all, this young man is just doing what he is trained to do.  He is just doing what is expected of an upstanding young fundamentalist.  This brings up a much larger problem that covers the whole scope of Independent Baptist fundamentalism. 

The man was simply wrong to do what he did, and he was simply wrong in his overall presentation of it.  When we got home and discussed it with our son, we learned that he in fact, as I suspected, had no idea what was going on.  He was basically following along and joining in the club.  

Children are so impressionable and easy to manipulate which is precisely the reason they have parents!  

I rang the assistant pastor of the church, who is a close friend of mine, and explained to him what had happened.  He understood completely, and my distress resonated with him but he never really offered a solution. I can't blame him. I don’t really know a solution either.  I mean it was a honest mistake by a young, well-intended man, but it just goes to show what I have been afraid of.  It was later reported that a special meeting was called with the staff, and from now on it will be with parent involvement if there seems to interest.  But even with that, you understand my continued apprehension and hesitation.

We are so presupposed to have the ministries and services like the next guy, so we start doing Sunday school, because it is just simply expected in today's religious society.  We encourage young men and women to get involved in these various and assorted “gospel” ministries because it is expected. We have the segregated youth services and bus ministries, and if what happened to my son is what happens to any random child in the church, what are they doing to the bus kids year in and year out?  These children do not have parents who ask questions, and they may well grow up with a false sense of security because they prayed a prayer!  Oh, the horror of it all!

We separate the families.  We separate the children from Mom and Dad and leave it up to Joe blow fundy to lead them to Christ?  It’s just not right.  I have been uneasy about it since I have had children.  I never saw the danger until then.  

You trust these guys to instruct them properly on the gospel and eternal salvation, and instead you get coercion, urging for a decision to have a number to report, and all this one-two-three-pray-after-me bull crap with a little bit of ask Jesus into your heart, which means what anyway?!?  It is absolutely out of order and a total misrepresentation of what the gospel is.

The reality is my kid was just probably thrown into bus kid status, led away to some room, given some watered down gospel mumbo jumbo by some pubescent 17 or 18 year old with an itch to impress the pastor or the overbearing strict legalistic parents whom also want to impress the pastor.  My son was pressured into being honest.  Then he was pressured to not be left out when it was time to pray.  

Later that night, I asked my son if he could recall any of the message to which he replied "no".  He remembered talking with his friends before children's church.  Again, it hits home when people take your kids and use coercion and say it’s conviction.  It’s all very cultic in principle.

This is not Bible salvation, or even a figment of it.  I was so disturbed.  Not angry, just disturbed that it has come to this.  I’m disturbed that what we have has become so manufactured and transparent that we would target 7 year olds as our converts.  

Many church members and people like my self that feel it necessary to have a church home,  so to have that fellowship and times of worship, we are forced at every hand to assimilate to bogus traditions in the church that we do not hold to.  

My son's salvation is too precious of a thing to have corrupted and distorted, no matter how well intended the people are!  First time, shame on them, second time, shame on me.  How can I ever just send my son to a Sunday school class or children’s church when they are seperated from me, and they could be given very damaging instructions at any time?

The reality is that many of the schisms and divisions within the body are because of the actions of the ruling clans in local churches and not the rare dissenter that visits from time to time because it’s required.  The reality is that many root problems with our young people and children's ministries are because of hellbent desires to be good fundamentalists.