Conspire Conference – General Session 3

This session was on the importance of involving family in ministry. The session was lead by Kurt Bruner and John Trent.

There was a lot in this session. The gist of what Kurt and John were saying was that the missing ingredient in the church was intentional parental involvement in passing faith to their children. They were saying the during the most busiest time as parents is when we have to be the most intentional. I completely agree.

I did have a problem with how the information was presented. It started with a video that presented the “crisis” that we are in danger of losing a whole generation. I am turned off by that kind of alarmism. You can look at it from a different point of view. Why not choose to look at it from the point of view that a new day is dawning rather than the day is about to end? We know that there are challenges when it comes to parents passing their faith down to their kids. We all give ourselves a hard time about it… parents included. We don’t need more people to make us feel even worse. We need people to inspire us, encourage us, equip us and empower us to meet the challenge. I don’t need to hear about the problem more; I need to hear the stories of success from people whether or not they are working completely or not. I need to know that it is possible to tackle this challenge head-on.

I know that John and Kurt are trying to do just that, but why is it that evangelicals think browbeating is the best way to inspire people? Positive vision casting posing what is possible is worth more than vision casting letting people know all the things that are wrong.