During my thirty years of working with Children's Ministries the Lord showed me a flaw in my teaching that needed to be addressed: While each lesson may have been filled with crafts, songs and fun activities, a crucial element was missing. There was no tie-in between the Biblical lesson and the student's modern-day lives. In short, children may have learned some details about the characters and the Biblical story, but they lacked the connection, or life-applications, of those lessons to their own lives. After all, they would ask, "Who cares if a giant fish swallowed Jonah, what does that have to do with me? I saw that without establishing that critical link between then and now, the gospel message was being dismissed as "irrelevant".
Once the Lord changed the way I perceived and presented the Good News the results were dramatically different. It is important to note that the gospel message remained the same, but the way that message was presented was now totally different!
My students began to see that their Creator God, through inspired worldly authors, had indeed written the Bible for, and about, them. They saw that it was lives just like theirs that were being detailed, even though the Bible stories were thousands of years old. In short, my students now saw a relevant connection between the days of old and our modern-day lives. This realization brought about stunning and visible changes in their lives. Once I saw the changes, God directed me to take the message of the Good News and share it with people outside the local church. Solomon's Quest™ - The Search For the Ultimate Power - was born out of obedience to that calling.
The exciting thing is that God never reveals truth to only one person. As I explored my new calling I found Dr. George Barna's research was proving the same needs. Here are summaries from three different Barna research surveys:
- The vast majority of people feel the Bible has no bearing on our daily lives. A
- According to a recent survey 84% of adults say their religious faith is very important in their lives. Of that lofty number only about 40% regularly attend a local church. B
- Sadder still, the Barna Research Group's survey states that only 9% of the Christians have a Biblical worldview. Only 4% of our populace look at life's daily challenges and ask, "What does the Bible say about this situation?" A
[This is undeniable evidence that the world, including the Christian community, is no longer looking to the Word of God as a viable roadmap for their daily lives.]
|
