Where are the Children?

By Bishop Sherman L. Merritt, D.D.

Jesus spent a lot of time with his disciples trying to make them understand their assignment and responsibilities to him. In current times, it seems to be that so many people have been so caught up with themselves that they have forgotten their responsibility of producing sons and daughters of God that will take their place in life. Unfortunately, we are losing a generation of potentially gifted young people because we have failed to invest in them or teach them their responsibilities in the work of the Lord or train them to serve. In fact, we owe them an apology because we have given them a false sense of what Christianity is truly supposed to be and have consequently made it difficult for them to understand what is right. Somehow, we have repeated the same things down through the history of time. We do not seem to be learning from our mistakes and experiences but are instead repeating them over and over again. We have parents who have been unable to see the abilities possessed by their own children. They continue to treat them like little babies but have to realize that they are grown now and have children of their own—Yet are still being treated the same. The church has the same mindset when it comes to cultural development. In the eyes of many, young people never seem to be capable of doing anything in the form of leadership even though they have a love for the Lord as they should. It is very disturbing that these same kids were not given a chance to perform their God-given desires in the church. They were never seen for who they truly are. Now, they have experienced college, graduated with degrees and honors, and begun successful careers. Some have become teachers in schools, but they will not teach in the church . They do not even want to attend church. Over time, they have lost their desire for the church. They have lost all interest and motivation in the church. Their potential has been crushed because the church was not willing to involve them or invest in them in any meaningful way. Look around and ask yourself, “Where are the children?” They are not in conventions. There used to be thousands of young people in attendance, but now if you look around, it seems like the convention has been reduced

to a nursery or babysitting. Thousands of young people used to be excited about being there and competing for offices. We have to stop and think about what happened to them. The problem we have now is that we have not had any dialogue about what happened to them or how we can attract them back.

The scripture says when Joshua and the elders lived, the people feared the Lord, but there came another generation that knew not the Lord. That is frightening to hear and to know that we might be producing the same kind of generation. We should have learned from our past mistakes to avoid repeating the same things. I mentioned the lack of and need for dialogue and want to make it clear that if we do not develop the younger generation, we will end up with no future and no replacements for the current leadership.

It seems that we are content sitting back while all of our leaders get older. Remember again that the Lord says in Revelation 3:2 “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die…” We have to take action before it is too late. There are a lot of young people who still love the Lord, but they are confused about how to act on that. We must embrace change and stop trying to live in and recreate the past. If we do not, we will continue to push them away and make them feel like they are not important or an integral part of the church. Furthermore, we have failed to give our children covering. Our young people are our future, so we must be careful not to be in a place where all of our older leaders are getting old at the same time with no replacements in sight. The children should be mentored.

But, where are the children? They are not in the church. We used to have Monday night young people classes and services to teach them how to carry out the service and to be trained in leadership roles. We have no national evangelists that we can recommend for our churches that need help or that we can prepare for taking over. Therefore, we have churches but no one to pastor them. There is an absence of successors. The Bible says they call the young because they are strong, but the old are wise.

In reality, the church cannot do without the youth. If there are no youth, there is no growth. If there is no growth, there is no future. Where are the children? They are not in Sunday school. If we were wise, we would utilize spiritually developed young people to reach today’s generation that the older ones cannot reach. After all, young people have been involved in every change that God has orchestrated. The Lord said to Jeremiah, “When you were in your mother’s womb, I called and appointed you.” He also called these young people, so we must develop them by presenting an example. They are part of His plan. If Daniel and the Hebrew boys had not been trained, they would not have been capable of displaying the power of God. Similarly, David was only about 15 years old when he was anointed and look where he ended up in history. He had leadership skills to lead the people even from a young age. Joseph was only 17 when God gave him a dream which led him to save a nation of people.

Our job is to extract the God-given power by working with young people and connecting them with the older leaders. The Lord recognizes the value of having the youth in His divine plan. They have dreams. They have visions. But more importantly, they have the energy not to be killed but to be directed. Young people have the ability to draw other young people whereas older people are losing that ability because of the age gap. Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:12, “Let no man despise thy youth.” The motivation for this scripture is that he thought people would not respect him because he was young. Our actions towards young people can make them feel that way, which is why we have to be mindful and continue to question, “Where are the children?”