The Passion to Serve
The passion to serve God and the desire to follow His leadership will often bring you to a place that seems surreal. You ask yourself how did I get here. What am I to do now? How do I fit into the scheme of things and then it hits you. God is gently leading you along so that you can accomplish His will. I believe that is exactly what is happening in my life and the life of Stinson Press. For the past few years I have been struggling with the direction of Stinson Press. Our mission is to get the Word out in printed form. We are doing that, but I felt like we needed to do more. And then God opened my eyes to the need to focus on the intentional spiritual formation of the family. It all started about 2004 when the concept of D6 came on the scene. It was developed by Randall House and has slowly been growing. Last September I attended the D6 conference and there I learned that a movement within the Mega churches has begun to focus on the spiritual development of the family. In many cases they have scrapped their approach to ministry if it does not meet the mission of winning and disciplining the whole family.
In April of 2007, Strong Families Innovation Alliance met with fourteen of the major mega churches including Saddleback and Willow Creek. At that meeting they recognized from what statistics that are available that 88% of the children in evangelical homes leave church at the age of 18. In a report to the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, T.C. Pinkney observed that 70% of teenagers involved in church youth groups stop attending church within two years of their high school graduation. Alarming! The Christian Faith is declining at an alarming rate because we are not discipling the next generation. Most self-identified unbelievers in this country are former church kids, says Kurt Bruner. Kurt Bruner also states,” It has been conservatively estimated that less than half of kids attending church with their parents today will be active Christians as adults. God designed the family as the primary context of faith formation yet fewer than ten percent of parents have any kind of faith discussions with their children. Families have outsourced to the church a job that can only be done at home.” Most churches have done an excellent job of worship and developing programs for all kinds of ministry, but have failed to help the family do its job. The problem is not what happen at church, but what happen in the home.
Stinson Press is changing its focus to helping families do their job at home. We have launched a new imitative called “God’s Frontline Families.” We believe the battle for are kids is in the home and we want to help families who are on the frontline of the battle do a better job of winning and discipling their kids. Let us work together to change the world for Christ.
Dale Bates is President of Stinson Press, Inc., in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. He and his wife Tanya live on the outskirts of Poplar Bluff. Dale has two children who live in Arkansas, Brad & Kristy. He attends worship at Agee Fellowship General Baptist Church. Rev. Bates has also served as Pastor for several years prior to coming to Stinson Press and Poplar Bluff.
Posted on 11/24/2009 10:17 AM by Dale Bates
