“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” -Our Lord Jesus in The Gospel of Luke 10:2.

What if the harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few, and you put in people not fit to labor?  How will we be judged if we allow this to happen?

What do I mean by those not fit to labor?

I mean those who are not able to pass down the faith properly, and thus so many who could have entered into the Kingdom of God will not enter.

Two Ways of Speaking

As a background to preaching the faith, we must understand that there are two ways of speaking.

• One way is the combination of words to make a meaning, such as in lecturing in a classroom.
• The other way is the communication of an experience, like a child describing what gifts he received on Christmas morning.

If we preach the faith by the first way of speaking, if you think about it, it is actually a type of magic.  We think that by combining words a certain way and speaking about certain topics and repeating what we tried to memorize that we will magically turn those we serve in our churches into saints.  This thinking is perverse.

Why?!

Because whenever we as Christians are called to speak, it should be the second way of speaking;  we are to communicate the experience of the life in Christ.

For those of us that serve in teaching ministries, sometimes the service becomes a self-congratulatory farce where we are putting in undeveloped or incompetent people to serve.  This could be for many reasons: maybe we want to win the approval of those we invite into the service, or maybe they are well-known in the community, and we think that by inviting them into the service it will raise the prestige of the parish church.

If this type of selection becomes a culture in a church, then lack of clarity and confusion will arise over what it means to serve in a teaching ministry.  It may even become just a title: “Oh look!  She’s serving.  She must be a woman of high character and dedication.”  We begin to confuse the title for the substance of service.  If we try to “teach” the faith by “lecture,” then it can’t go far because this is not what it means to preach the faith.

Rather, preaching the faith is like the type of speaking which communicates an experience like a child describing what he got for Christmas.  No matter if it’s an adult or a child, those hearing will want to listen.  This is because the child is sharing his life with you.  It is personal.  The talk is not just an order of words that gives a specific meaning, but an invitation to share a part of his life with him.

In many places in the New Testament, we read that we are “called unto [insert the gospel, or repentance, or the faith, or the fellowship of the Son, or the grace of Christ, or the marriage supper of the Lamb],” but what is not readily apparent to the reader of the New Testament in English, or even in a superficial reading of the original Greek word kaleo, is that the word kaleo also means “to invite.”  In the sentence above, that is how the word “called” is to be interpreted.  So the idea is that we are not called as in we are commanded to believe, but we are called as in we are invited into the faith and the Church that is the steward of that faith.

By definition, an invitation is a communication to share in something.  This invitation is the basis of how we should preach and “teach” the faith.  It is an invitation to a life.

Interestingly enough, of all places where such an idea would appear clearly, it appeared in my classroom.  I remember I had a student years ago, and one time as we were having a class discussion (I think it was about growth), he mentioned that he had a cousin who had went to a church and that church had transformed him.  Now I am fairly certain that my young student did not know much about the faith, and from the way he was speaking, it did not appear that he went to church, but he bore witness to the transformed life that results from the ministries of the church.  The grand irony (and the working of the wisdom of God) is that even this young child recognized the essence of true Christian ministry.

So what about us who are called to teach in our churches?  Are we communicating the lived Christian life or are we combining words with a meaning and lecturing the young in our churches?  Even in education, the method of lecturing is not effective.  In the classroom, it is only after one models the skill being taught that lecturing becomes effective.  The lecture makes sense after the modeling.  The same is true of Christianity: we must first model the Christian life before we can properly pass down the faith.

Case # 1: On Prayer

I once was speaking with a person who serves in a teaching ministry in his church, and he mentioned that he did not pray often.  Uh-oh!

To highlight how serious this is, let me digress briefly: One year, a girl in my Sunday school was given the opportunity to teach one lesson to the class that year, and when she did, it was clear that she had spent a long time reflecting on the subject that she taught for that one lesson.  She led a discussion and had her fellow classmates reflect on their own lives and helped them see things a different way.  I should mention that she was 12.  And I know for a fact that some of the people who have taught her in church are not capable of serving her.  I even thought about why should we waste her time by having her go to those ‘services?’  She is not being served properly.

How will she be taught prayer from such teachers who don’t pray?  Will she be taught that prayer is to just ask God for stuff, or success, or guidance, or patience?

The reality is that a life of prayer should be the communication of the beauty, goodness, and truth of God.  Prayer is not simply about asking God for stuff.  That is one very small aspect of prayer; it is not the essence of prayer.

St. Basil the Great described the object of the life of prayer as “ravishing beauty” in his Homily on Faith.  By prayer, we fly up to behold this beauty of God.  When we behold it, we can now begin to communicate to others what we have seen.

What about when the young ones, whose teacher who does not pray, ask about unanswered prayers?

“Just have faith,” the incompetent teacher answers.  I’m fairly certain that the teacher who gives this answer knows that this is a very poor answer, but doesn’t want to appear to be stumped when the question is raised.

But if we have reflected on the example of Job in the Bible and on the prayer of our Lord in Gethsemane, it provides us with a true foundation of faith because we now know what to expect from God, not just deceive ourselves in thinking that all things we pray for will happen, and then confuse that self-deception for faith, and think that this is what means “To ask in faith” as in Matthew 21:22, James 1:6, and John 5:15.  Regarding these verses, I encourage you to read them in context.

And in case you are now wondering about unanswered prayers, I have written an article on that topic, which you can read by clicking here.

Case # 2: On Doubt

Another case on how to properly pass down the faith by communicating a life in Christ is addressing the doubt that the youth experience.

Some of the things I have heard over the years from those in teaching ministries in the church are:

“We don’t doubt.  This is not something we do.”

“We should have faith.”

“Their [the atheists] points are not valid” (then they don’t provide an explanation of why their points are not valid).

Such speaking is a combination of words with a meaning; it is not the invitation into a life.  Such speaking will not help those who are doubting to navigate what they are going through.  They are doubting; they know this.  They probably know that they are doubting more than they know anything else in their lives.  And you’ve simply given them short sentences that appear to be an answer, but they’re not.

But those who communicate that they also went through periods of doubt, and how the end of that journey was a stronger and solid faith, and for what reasons with a strong explanation, will be able to help these young people navigate their doubt leading to a deeper and stronger faith.

What Now?

It was because of such an invitation to and the communication of the life in Christ that certain people entered into the life of the Church such as St. Basil, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom.  They, through those who taught them, were able to behold that “ravishing beauty” and flew up to behold the beauty, goodness, and truth of God.  They were able to see the world in a new way that made sense and answered their deepest valid longings and transformed the way they thought and the way they lived.  This is what solidified them in the faith.  Then after that, they communicated what they saw and lived, and they left behind for us those communications in writings.  These three are incredibly prolific in their sermons, orations, treatises, and poems.

How many young people who could have been the next Chrysostoms or Basils or Gregorys did we lose (and are still losing) because of the self-congratulatory farce that we call the service, but which has been messed up?

Had so many of our youth who express the same deep and valid longings and who ask the same deep questions that make for a meaningful life, and who do not get the answers in Church, and are dismissed as just talking too much or who never stop reading or thinking, we would have had generations of Chrysostoms, and Basils, and Gregorys, but instead we have ended up with fanatics and fools because those who are in so many of our churches those in charge of our church services have turned the service into a farce.

The solution is to live the life Christ and the Church have invited us into, behold it and reflect upon it which includes reading what the Christians who lived before us, especially those of the early Church left for us, and then we will be able to authentically and effectively pass down the faith.

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