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Have you every had one of those thoughts that creeps deep in your soul and it says something like this: "Your mom and dad were right!" How about I have become my mom and dad. Looking at some pictures from earlier this year, I am relunctant to admit that I am look more and more like my dad. As a father of two sons, those thoughts have crept into my head numerous times over the past couple years. There are many things that I love from my childhood such as driving up Bent Mountain to Floyd, VA to see my grandparents for Christmas and seeing all the snow capped mountains and covered fields. It was absolutely gorgeous! As a boy, we used to go with my Grandad Giles to mow the family cemetary on Giles Mountain. (Yes my family owns a mountain..how cool is that?) I also remember the painful relationship my mom and dad had and watching them treat each other terribly in their special way. In spite of all that, I also remember my parents placing a priority on their faith as well as passing it down to my brother and I.

Looking back though, outside of a few brief conversations about Christ and the church, my parents did little to shape us spiritually other than express the importance of going to church. What I remember was that Christianity and our solidarity to it directly corresponded to our activity within the four walls of the church. Christian spirituality was rarely taken out of that context. The definition of church I am operating under here is those building and existing programs that funnel people into "doing" church rather than being the community of believers "called" the church. Should be parents be liable for this lack of spiritual emphasis? In some ways yes, but in others no. They were simply operating on the a priori that was handed down to them through the church. The message was "you come and go to your class/group and we will take your kids to their class/group and will specialize all our ministries to cater to you and your children personally." In essence its "one stop shopping." You can get all your "spiritual stuff" done on Sunday morning, Sunday nights and Wednesday nights. Sadly, the church has done little raise up missional believers because we have used a "come and see" philosophy to "do" church rather than a "go and tell" philosophy of "being" the church.