The Child in the ChurchPresent Realities

and Future Impact

Dan Brewster

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Present Realities: Part 1THERE ARE NO UNREACHED CHILDREN

If we don’t reach the children, they will be reached

by political ideologies, other faiths, consumerism, secularism,

people traffickers and others.

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Present Reality

• Children are the most needy and most numerous “people group” on the planet. .

• Almost one-third of the world’s population – nearly 2 billion people – is under the age of eighteen.

• People under the age of 18 make up over 1/3 of the population of Africa.

• Here in S. Africa, 28.9% of the population is between the

ages of 0 and 14. 1Source: International Programs Center, U.S. Bureau of the Census; Website:

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/popclockw

Present RealityChildren are . . .

. . . . Suffering

22,000 children die every day (UNICEF)

. . . Unwanted

At least 100,000,000 children and youths live on the streets.

100 countries are now have a below replacement fertility rate..

. . .Exploited Perhaps as many as 10,000,000 children and young people are caught up in the sex industry worldwide.

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Present Reality

All children are at risk. Millions also suffer from Prosperity -- (and spiritual poverty)

Post-Modern Confusion• No Absolutes. No True Truths, therefore everything must be mistrusted. • If something is true, so what? • Life has no meaning. “We might as well amuse ourselves to death”• Pessimism, Hopelessness, Aimlessness• Everything to live with – but nothing to live for.

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Present Reality

All children are at risk. Millions also suffer from Prosperity -- (and spiritual poverty)

–Adult Values Conflict/Parental neglect.• (“Stupid Things Parents Do to Mess up Their Kids”)

–More Work, Less Family.

– Love is spelled “T-I-M-E!”

– The Myth of “Quality Time”

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Present Reality• In the 1990s it was ‘the 10/40 Window’• In 1996. The ‘4/14 Window’

• By 2010 it has become clear that the 4/14 Window is not just a catchy phrase, but a true window of receptivity – an established fact.

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Present Reality

The fact of the ‘window.’ Most people who will make a decision to follow Christ, will do so before the age of 15. (cf. Barna; Brewster)

Children and young people are receptive because “the cement is still soft.”

See Luis Bush Book

Present Reality: Part II800 Year Old Prophecy

In 1268 Kublai Khan, the Mongol king wrote to the Roman pope:

“You send me a hundred men skilled in your religion and I shall be baptized, and all my subjects will study Christianity too. There will then be more Christians in the East than in the West…”

Kublai Khan was right – just 800 years ahead of his time!

1900

2000

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

82 %

38 %

18 %

62 %

In 1900, 82% of Christians lived in the North and West

West East

Question: What was the primary mission strategy in many places in these regions?

Africa South Asia China Latin America0

100200300400500600

9.2 4 0.762

360

19370

481

Church Growth in the Global South

1900 2000

Present Reality: How are we doing as a whole?

• The number of Christians has grown to reach 2.1 billion in 2000.

• But the total percentage of the global population has slightly declined.

1900 200032

32.5

33

33.5

34

34.5

35

34.5%

33%

% of Christians

On Our Watch: The Case of the Vanishing

Christians• Since the 1990’s every year in the USA

and Europe 2,224,800 practicing Christians stop attending church.

• From 1979-2005 half of all Christians in the UK stopped going to church.

• In 2007 only 6% of the UK population attend church weekly.

1900 2000 20160

10

20

30

40

50

6051 %

4 % 1 %

UK Sunday School Attendance

On Our Watch:UK and the Next Generation

• In 1900 more than 50% of children in UK attended Sunday school, most of them came from outside the Church walls.

• It is predicted that by 2016 only 1% of UK Children will attend Sunday school.• The Generational Pattern is

the same in the UK, USA and Korea.

On Our Watch: Korean Christians

1960 1985 1995

623,072

6,489,282

8,760,000

Korean Church GrowthIn the second half of the 20th Century the Korean Protestant Church experienced the fastest Church growth in modern history.

On Our Watch: Korean Christians

1995 200111.5

12

12.5

13

13.5

14

14.5

1514.5 %

12.8 %

Korean Protestants: 11.6% Loss

•

• But: Since 1995 Korean churches experienced constant decline in membership.

• 1997 Korea Gallup: 53% were Non-religious. Among that group, 73% had left the Protestant church.

• Those who left Protestant churches were mostly from the younger generation and college students.

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Comparing Korea and Thailand• Missionaries came to Korea and Thailand about the same

time in the late 1800s. • Both closed societies. Both strongly Buddhist. • Today Korea is 30% Christian, Thailand is less that 1%

Christian. What made the difference? • In Thailand, the missionaries targeted mainly adults. In

Korea. They began to educate the children. The first school now has 357,000 graduates. They built more than 1000 schools and those children became Christian.

Children in the Church: Future Impact

• The Church needs to be serious about children and youth ---- because God surely is!

• Perhaps nothing upset Jesus more than “hindering” the children. (Matthew 18:5, 6)

• Children in fact very prominent in Scripture – perhaps more than 1400 references to children, sons, daughters, parental relationships etc.

• But for much of the Church today, children are the Great “Omission!”

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Children in the Church: Future Impact• A Brave New World: My Grand daughter teaching me

how to use an ipad.• Hers is a world of social media, bit torrents, wikis, blogs,

vlogs, podcasts, RSS, SMS, IMS, texting, GPS, video sharing, and photo swapping.

• She has never taken a photo graph they couldn’t see instantly, or watched TV without a menu, or used a pay phone. They won’t use email – it is way too slow.

• And wait til you see what is coming!

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The Bible says that we are to have dominion over all the earth. (Genesis 1:27, Psalms 8:3-7)

• The most valuable resources are not in the ground but in the mind. (How much is my blackberry worth? )

• The greatest resource on the planet today is in the ‘clean energy’ and resourcefulness of children and youth.

• Today’s children and young people, can and will dream of a better world and then work to create it (Just as God did).

• Creation is filled with surprises that God wants them to discover• “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter

is the glory of man” (Prov. 25:2)

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Tomorrow’s children and youth will certainly have the tools to change their world. They will make and Impact.

• They must also have something to believe in, and provide purpose, direction for their efforts and meaning for their lives.

• They need to be equipped and deployed, not just amused and entertained.

• They need Missions that Motivate; to learn to Do Hard Things, Dare to be Risk-Takers for God!

• They need to know Who they are, and Whose they are.

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Children need to know Who they are and Whose they are.

• People for whom Christ died and who are Precious in His sight.

• Children and young people today must know that they are wanted, that they are important, that they matter.

• God didn’t just speak you into existence, He lovingly and delicately every cell together. He has hopes he has dreams and wonderful plans for you.

• “And If I matter to God, then what I think must be important. . . .

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“Give me children or I’ll die! (Genesis 30:1).

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Future Impact:Look for “The King in the Boy”

Judges 16: 1, 6-13• Jesse answered. “There is still the youngest. And Samuel replied,

“Send for him, for we will not sit down until he arrives.” • A prophetic call to a generation lost in the wilderness of a perverse

world, fighting its beasts alone, groping for its identity, with no one to point the way to the King that resides within them.

• David was probably between ages of 13 and 15. Why so early? What if he messes up? That God would invest his anointing in his adolescent years, show the weight of what this season of life carries. (Note also, Jesus birth – the gifts the wise men brought.)

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Future Impact:Look for “The King in the Boy”

• Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it is stature or age, or anything else which creates capacity for receiving the anointing. – Re-position your horn!

• David had already fought a lion and bear. Lions scatter the adults to target the young. 1 Peter 5: “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” His tactics are the same.

• Most of us are unaware of the assault this generation is facing. 1 in 4 girls sexually abused before 18. Etc. This generation is struggling and fighting with issues beyond their years.

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Future Impact:

Look for “The King in the Boy”• The significance of the horn of anointing – always means defeat of the enemy.

(See Ps 18:2,3; 1 Sam. 2:1, Ps. 92:10; Isa. 10:27, etc.• David’s anointing broke the fatherless spirit in David. His father Jesse saw

nothing in him; his father-in-law Saul was jealous and sought to destroy him. • Todays youth are fatherless. They have thousands of teachers but no fathers.

We must not just tell, but model a lifestyle for them. Show them how to fall – and how to get up. Show them how to fear – and how to be courageous in the midst of fear.

• Show them how you confront the lions in your life. (The new ADD) (Note Kilimanjaro book)

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Future Impact:Look for “The King in the Boy”

• Samuel did not find David in the church. He found him in the wilderness. He smelled of the wilderness. His appearance and behaviour was wild. If the youth of own generation is wild – it is because the wilderness has shaped their identity.

• Too often, the Church’s voice to the wilderness has been one of criticism. Or we have tried to tame them with Doctrine. But doctrine is not the tamer of wildness – vision is the tamer of their wilderness.

• The next generation does need a critical voice, it needs a prophetic voice. A voice that calls them from the wilderness into the palace. We need, like God does, to see the king in the boy.

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The Prodigal Son• One other thought. In the NT, another son came in from

the wilderness – the prodigal son. He too smelled of the wilderness. He was filthy and unkempt. But notice that the father didn’t send him in to bathe before he embraced him. The father was waiting patiently for his son. He saw him while he was a long way off. And he RAN to meet and embrace him. He did not withhold his love because of the wildness in the boy. He did not wait for the boy to apologize. He never stopped watching for the boy.