Rev. Kirk Bottomly (Photo by Scott Thomas Wiest}
The 37th General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church began yesterday (6/21/17) at Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church in Fair Oaks, Calif., with worship and a sermon by the church’s pastor.
The Rev. Kirk Bottomly based his sermon on the GA’s theme “Generation to Generation,” reading from Psalm 78:4-7 and Psalm 145:1;4-7.
“One generation shall praise Your works to another,” said Bottomly, highlighting the words from Psalm 145. “Declare, meditate, speak, celebrate and sing, that is how the Gospel gets passed on from generation to generation. … The church is a multi-generational program. We contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, and we do it again, and again.”
Back to the beginning of Presbyterianism, back to the Apostles, the Gospel is a multi-generational project, he said.
In Deuteronomy 6:7-9, Moses said “these words that I command you today shall be on your year, you shall teach them diligently to your children.”
“You should do this in your house,” said Bottomly. “You relate God’s word to every activity in your life. … reinforce these lessons again and again, so that the faith takes in the next generation, so the generational hand-off takes place.”
Bottomly said that Psalm 145 speaks to the worship setting, while Deut. 6 speaks to the family setting.
“We do not live by bread alone, but on every one of these holy words that comes from God,” he said, These words that shape children into committed, thinking, spiritually mature, world changing believers.
God works through the parents, to teach a Biblical-centered worldview to the children, he said.
“Who is working in your family, in your church? Are the parents and grandparents in your church Biblically-literate enough to pull this off?”
Or, Bottomly asked, are they expecting the church to do this, “one hour a week during Sunday school? This is a tough assignment. We have families in our pews suffering from a famine of the Word. This is not a problem the greatest Sunday school in the world can fix.”
Rev. Kirk Bottomly (Photo by Scott Thomas Wiest}
The other venue for the generational hand-off is the church. Quoting from Psalm 145, “One generation shall praise your works to one another.”
“The story of God, the truth about God and faith in God – they get passed to the next generation through praise, through worship,” said Bottomly. “The kids that are learning these things … they see Mom and Dad and grandparents worship God in genuine thanks and praise.
“The parents have the primary responsibility,” he said, “and the church has the secondary responsibility to equip the parents.”
“We not only need great preaching, we need great worship. Dry unemotional orthodoxy is a half-truth. It doesn’t touch the heart.”
Bottomly referred to Ephesians 5:18-19 and Colossians 3:16, both of which speak of “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.”
Bottomly continued by defining the terms mentioned in the verse:
- “Psalmoi” or Pslam: the psalter, any song accompanied by a plucked instrument.
- “Humnoi” or hymn: the new songs composed by the church phil 2; 1 Tim 3; Eph 4 1 Cor 15
- Odai pneumatikai: the spiritual songs.
“That is how you celebrate the faith and how you transfer faith,” he said. “It captures the heard and the mind and can be passed on from one generation to another.”
Bottomly asked if the church was willing to make the changes needed to pass on the faith to the next generation? “Is your church aging out or will it pass the baton to the next generations. It’s such a fragile transfer,” he said. “I don’t know how it happened for 2,000 years, except for the One who sits in the command center, who said ‘I will build my church.’”
“The question for us, the evangelical church, is will we be a part of that?”
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So what Happened to all the Millennials?
Good question. I am sure the PCUSA would like to know. In year 8 of their grand “1001 new communities” PMA program. The results so far has, as expected, tend to greatly under deliver and over promise. With the gradual passing of the Boomers, the Millennial cohort is the largest demographic group in American history. With a median age of 33-35 in 2017, they should be entering their prime years in household formation, family, having babies, going to church? Some are, others still live in the parents basements. So what happens to this generation and the PCUSA?
In essence the PCUSA made this bet. That millennials by and large is this monolith of liberal social ideologies and a laundry list of various causes and issues they tend to take seriously. So they devised 1001, NEXT, DisGrace to big tents, to name a few that skew deep blue ideologically, Jesus lite or relativistic theologically, to market their toxic brand of speech, thought intolerance, race, tribal zero sum gain politics, and the general hell of PC methodologies and “resistance” narratives. All thinking that brew would entice folks young and old to get off their chairs or turn off MSNBC and all say. Lets go to church!
What they got in 2017 is a whole generation of seminary graduates, heavy in debt, unemployable or still pulling coffee at some trendy bistro. What they got is their toxic brand of church that was suppose to appeal to the bi-coastal, Sanders-Warren wings, new Urbanest of the culture. And that has been an abysmal failure. What they got is a leadership nexus more adept at shouting, bull horns, blogging, making statements, who know nothing about running a denomination, let alone providing anything resembling a compelling reason why a 20, 30, 50, 75 year old should darken the doors of any of their churches. What they got is the ongoing PMA-OGA-burocratic food fight over jobs and who gets what in great divorce.
Maybe, just maybe some of the those folks the PCUSA would sell their mothers and give their left arms to, are finding their way to the ECOs, EPCs of this world. Maybe rather than wanting to talk to the Cuban terrorists and Islamists of the world, maybe they could visit those next door neighbors. They kicked Jesus, the Confessions, the Constitution to the curb when it did not suit them, and all they got left is a bag of empty nice trinkets and slogans no one wants.
Amen. Even among clergy, so many of our children have abandoned the church. I asked my older son who only attends occasionally why he doesn’t join and why he doesn’t support the church with his tithes and offerings. He said (and I swear he didn’t get it from me) “God wants me to be happy and if going to church or giving doesn’t make me happy then God doesn’t want me to do it.” He is a product of this superficial, me-me-me generation that we evidently spoiled and sent to liberal colleges and didn’t care what filthy philosophies they taught.