The Era of Trust is Gone!  Skepticism, contempt, and disillusionment are the replacements.  Institutions in America, for the most part, have shown themselves to be corrupt during the past 10 years.  Count in all kinds of sources of authority—Congress, banks, public schools, organized religions, businesses, sciences—and you will find mistrust and skepticism among people.  What is the cause?  Probably not just a single thing, but the concentration of power and erosion of accountability are at least two contributing themes.  Examples abound, but consider levels of trust around climate change, the church and scout scandals, and the elected congress.  Is it time to go back to our grass roots?  Is it time to go downward and outward?  How do we apply this lack of trust issue today to our life of service as church workers?

Two-thirds.

That’s the important figure at the heart of the 2009 book Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it, co-authored by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer (Master Books, 2009).  Already Gone claims that of all the children sitting around you in the pews on Sunday, 60-plus percent of them will abandon their place there within an alarmingly short amount of time.  Based on a survey of 1,000 formerly and currently church-going twenty-somethings, one of the main points put forth is the bitter irony that Sunday school itself is the reason that the kids are leaving the church.  The children tend already to leave the church, metaphorically, somewhere in the time between elementary and high school.

Cf. article by Jim Chliboyko, The Canadian Lutheran, January/February 2010, “Where are our young people?”  See why the youth are calving off the berg of the church in this good review.  What are we doing to our young?

The LCMS Board for University Education designates one Sunday during the month of April as an occasion for congregations to celebrate Concordia Sunday. The Concordia system schools are “crown jewels…wonderful gifts of God to our church body…Christian higher education from a Lutheran perspective.” I’m asking you to consider sharing the ministries of our colleges and universities where you serve.  Materials (brochures, bulletin inserts, etc.) are available at http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=14910.

The Lord of the harvest certainly does raise up workers in His harvest fields.  He does not let that promise lay dormant as the flow of workers into the harvest is visible every year.  The Lord also will continue to use the harvesters He already has in the field to identify and encourage those who will bear the Good News for generations to come.

“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest fields.”

Matthew 9:37-38