In my role as a Church leader and primary school chaplain, I have noticed a significant decline in the communities’ embracing of things of faith and belief. In fact, I would probably go as far as saying that the Church, in general, has been getting a pretty bad rap lately.
I remember many years ago attending a conference at Melbourne University titled ‘Adolescent Spirituality’. The keynote speaker was a man by the name of Richard Eckersley, a brilliant academic who, at that time, was working as the author for the Australian Commission for the Future.
Richard made an interesting comment during his keynote speech. He said that there existed three significant protective factors for young people. They are community, family and spirituality. He went on to say that for young people who had no connection to family or community, for them to be able to “cry out to that which transcends the physical” it can be the difference between that young person thriving in the community or not, and potentially life and death.
Since that time, there has been a massive decline in young people feeling any meaningful connection to God or spirituality in general. Interestingly, for most people in the community, when you scratch the surface of this issue, they will acknowledge some level of belief, but sadly not enough that they would pass it on to their children, which concerns me greatly.
I fear for a society that lacks the ability in those moments of absolute despair to “cry out to that which transcends the physical”. Personally, I have always gained great solace from my belief in a creator God, and I sincerely encourage us all to explore the possibility of this being true. I promise you that the roof will not fall in if you pop into a church on Sunday morning and see what’s happening there. It may be just what you’re looking for.
Many blessings,
Pastor Mark Rumble
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