CHAPTER 1
Failure Is Not an Option
âFailure is not an option.â
That line was made famous by NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz during the Apollo 13 mission. While we donât know if he really said it, the sentiment certainly was true of the NASA teams on the ground and the three astronauts in space in April 1970.
Loss of oxygen. Depleted power and water. Square carbon dioxide filters in round containers. Navigating without the stars. Powering up a cold and wet Command Module in space. Dehydration. Exhaustion.
Problem after problem was thrown at NASA over the course of the four days following an oxygen tank explosion. Any one of them was enough to make most people throw up their hands in despair and give up.
But not NASA.
For them, failure was not an option. The reason was simple. The stakes were too high. Three astronautsâ lives hung in the balance. These three men, 200,000 miles from earth, were friends. They were also husbands, fathers, and sons. Failure meant their certain deaths. It was not an option.
Reducing water and power use by 20 percent? âWeâll make it work. We have to. Failure is not an option!â
Make square filters work in round containers? âWeâll make it work. We have to. Failure is not an option!â
Navigate using the sun? âWeâll make it work. We have to. Failure is not an option!â
Power up a freezing craft in outer space for the first time ever? âWeâll make it work. We have to. Failure is not an option!â
Gene Kranz may not have said it, but NASA certainly practiced it. This relentless pursuit of success is why the events surrounding the Apollo 13 mission are often considered some of NASAâs finest hours. Because failure was not an option, NASA turned a near tragedy into one of the most remarkable achievements of the program.
NASA resolved to do whatever was required to get their three astronauts home alive. Thanks to their determination, thatâs exactly what they accomplished.
CHAPTER 2
Church, We Have a Problem
Failure wasnât an option for NASA, but if you look at the statistics, failure sure seems like it is an option for the church in America today.
According to LifeWay Research, roughly 70 percent of young adults drop out of church. That means seven out of ten of the kids you love, serve, pray over, teach, mentor, cry with, laugh with, high five, and hug will walk away from the church when they are out of high school.
Interestingly, the research also indicates about two-thirds of those dropouts return to the church later onâperhaps when they have kids of their own. So, only about 23 percent of young adults drop out for good. Letâs be optimists and call that 20 percent.
According to those statistics, hereâs how your kids ministry breaks down right now:
- Twenty percent of your kids will walk away from the church for good.
- Fifty percent of your kids will leave the church for a season but return later on.
- Thirty percent of your kids will stay in the church.
Let those numbers sink in. In a few years, two out of every ten kids in your church will walk away for good.
Five more will leave the church for an extended period of time. They will remove themselves from a church family and dramatically reduce their ability to glorify God. Without the churchâs accountability and encouragement to guide them, these young adults will increasingly put themselves in the way of temptation.
Only three of the ten will stay connected to the church. Perhaps failure is not an option for the church today after all. Itâs not an option because it is reality.
So letâs cut to the chase. Whose fault is it? Who is to blame for this failure?
Is it the parentsâ fault? God has given them the primary responsibility to disciple their kids, right? Did parents drop the ball?
Or is it the college and young adult ministryâs fault? The dropout is occurring âon its watch,â right? Is this ministry simply failing in its role to pick up the baton from the student ministry?
Speaking of student ministry, perhaps itâs to blame. Student ministry has students for six to seven yearsâvery formative years. Isnât this plenty of time to make sure kids are tethered to the church before they leave for college or to start a career?
What about pastors? Maybe theyâre to blame for not casting a vision of disciple-making to parents and ministry leaders and not equipping them to succeed.
While each of these may play a role in the dropout rate, thereâs one other ministry we have to put under the microscope, a ministry which may be key in reversing the trend of young adults leaving the churchâkids ministry.
I know what you might be thinking. How in the world does kids ministry share in the responsibility for the dropout rate of young adults leaving the church years later? Itâs a great question. A fair question. In fact, I believe we will see a dramatic decrease in this dropout rate if we can successfully answer this question.
But first, we need to understand what this dropout rate really means.
CHAPTER 3
Empty Pews and Empty Hearts
It would be a mistake to see this dropout rate simply as an indictment of the church. While it certainly may be in part, thereâs something much deeper at play. The church dropout is a symptom, albeit an important and harmful one, of a much more serious disease.
To see this, consider Hebrews 10:24â25, a passage often used to argue that believers need to be part of a local church.
And let us watch out for one another to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.
There it is. We shouldnât neglect meeting together. The Bible instructs us to go to church. It doesnât get any clearer, right? At least this is how we often hear the argument phrased. Go to church because the Bible says to.
I fully embrace the complete authority of the Bible. If Scripture says to do something, I take it at face value. However, I also want to get to the why of the Bibleâs commands. If possible, I want to understand Godâs heart behind the command so that I can know Him more fully.
So letâs break this passage down some and see if we can find Godâs heart behind this command.
Notice the three reasons the author of Hebrews gives for gathering together as a church. One comes right before the imperative, the other two right after it.
First, we gather âto provoke love and good works.â The Greek word translated as provoke means to contend. Interestingly, itâs found in just one other place in the New TestamentâActs 15:39âwhere it refers to the heated disagreement between Paul and Barnabas on whether to include Mark on a mission journey.
So when the writer of Hebrews is talking about provoking one another to love and good works, he means that we should be connecting deeply with one another so that we cannot sit still as believers. We have to do something. Our affections for Christ are stirred so deeply when we gather that we cannot help but love others as a result. We cannot help but seek to bring God glory through what we...