I remember growing up going to Sunday School. Most of the time as a child I really wanted to go, but even on the days I didn’t there was no question! Mom and Dad made sure I was there. One truth kept popping out week after week. The answer was always Jesus. It seemed that the questions always were structured in a way that led us to answer Jesus, with the occasional bible or God thrown in for good measure from time to time.
When did we get away from that? I don’t know when it was, but as I look back there seems to be a point where the answer is less & less Jesus and more & more tradition or how we do it. I can’t put my finger on when it happened, but I remember when I first realized it.
I was sitting in my home office, wondering how I was going to start a church that looked like the one I grew up with. I didn’t know where to find an organ. I wasn’t sure which of our traditional hymnals would work best. I was beating my head against a wall over how the group would look. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks! Get back to that Sunday School answer. Get back to Jesus.
What I soon realized was that people don’t really have an issue with Jesus. Most of the problems people in my neighborhood weren’t with Jesus but the way the church approached them. So we stripped away all of the fluff. We eliminated all of the extra doctrine and teaching so that people could see Jesus more clearly.
We began teaching the basic truths of who Jesus was and what he came to accomplish. He was really the Son of God. He really became a man. Jesus really died which was supposed to be my punishment. Then he rose. We didn’t worry about trying to explain how he could have done all of this. Our focus was turned to following Jesus. We just wanted to be more and more like Jesus.
The men and women that gathered around us gravitated to the truth of who Jesus was. They wanted more of him, not me! It was never about a church or a denomination. It was all about connecting people to the love and forgiveness of Jesus. What would happen if in our churches and ministries we spent less time talking about forms and more time with the basic function of salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection?
Perhaps we all need to go back to Sunday School for a moment and realize that Jesus is the way to heaven, not the church. Jesus always has been the answer. It’s probably time to realize that.
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