A.W. Pink said, "It's true that (many) are praying for a worldwide revival. But it would be more timely, and more scriptural, for prayer to be made to the Lord of the harvest, that He would raise up and thrust forth laborers who would fearlessly and faithfully preach those truths which are calculated to bring about a revival."
At CRCC, most of what we do (working towards "all") is "calculated to bring about a revival"...first in the individual, then in our homes, then in our churches, and prayerfully, in many in society. One of the areas where we've been working very hard is discipling and educating children. And it's working! Many are seeing a revival in their relationships with their children right now, and we are so very grateful. It's what we've praying for since 1997 when we started our church.
Today (Sept 4, 2012) as youth in our area get back to school, I'm compelled to offer a quick call to prayer. Let me carefully say that how a child should be educated is VERY sensitive territory...maybe the MOST sensitive territory. We know that 85-90% of Christian parents send their children to public schools. And the reasons are manifold. Some want to; many don't want to but have no other viable options, etc. Satan has done a masterful job of destroying family structures and therefore limiting the options of many. This breaks our hearts. And of course to do otherwise has a massive economic impact...first in not taking advantage for the taxes paid to fund it...and then the double whammy of private school costs or home education costs. All very real reasons.
With as much love as I can muster, I'll offer you some motivation for prayer. The church in America is currently losing between 70-88% of children growing up in Christian homes by the time they are 19-20 years old (Baptist Research Council Study). For the sake of argument, if you +/- that number 10-20 points, we've still got a nightmare on our hands. Less than 5% of Christian youth have a biblical worldview (Nehemiah Institute). Worldview is a function of who taught them (impartation) and the curriculum used (education). So many make a profession of faith, but don't experience the power of the Gospel in their thinking. What is education if not the training of the soulish realm? On the other hand, and citing just one example, 94% of homeschoolers stay in the faith of their parents after their high school years and 93% stay in church (NHERI Study). (This is not a post to argue for homeschooling.) But you know what...even if we throw out all the stats...look around. The Bible asks, "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Ps 11:3) What do you see?
Oh dear friends, I'm not trying to be mean or the bringer of bad news. Really. Just please pray for our students and children in schools everywhere today. Pray against ungodly associations, teachings, and influences. Pray that God would bring revival to this generation. Pray that our eyes will open and we'll see. Pray that we will understand. Pray that our tone and tenor will be appropriate as we humbly try to disseminate this information and encourage thought and prayer in this area. Pray that there is no human judgment, only divine conviction where needed in our lives. Pray for me please...that if I'm misguided I can see that and repent. But I am trying hard to see this rightly. We've lost a generation and working on another. Something BIG has to change. It can't be another rock climbing wall or playstation room at church. Something strategic and fundamental must be broken. Maybe we should build everything on Scripture?
And pray that the hand of the Enemy will be stopped and that our beautiful children will be protected from humanism, paganism, atheism, agnostisicm, and anything that doesn't exalt the Name of Christ, no matter where they are.
Love yall.
(Deut 6:6-7; Ps 1:1-3; Prov 13:20, 22:6; Lk 6:39-40; 2 Cor 10:5; Col 2:8; 1 John 4:1-4)
