Several years ago I started a program at my church that was one of the more successful things I’ve ever done. I was passionate about making sure kids truly knew the Bible, what it said and even how to use it. Most churches that reach out to seekers don’t always have a good plan for this type of “discipleship.” So I started one. It was a Wednesday night program where kids systematically went through a study of the Bible. K-2nd graders learned about God through specific stories in the Bible where 3rd-5th graders learned about their Bibles, spiritual disciplines as well as a survey of the Old and New Testament. By the time I left my church, I had 1.5 years of the curriculum written. In another 1.5 years I’d have 6 years of great, small-group based curriculum. I led this for 2 years and every semester I offered it, my attendance would grow by 40%. Kids actually had to pay for their resources to participate, they were all in and they were learning great stuff.

Almost three years have passed. Plenty of time for me to have finished the curriculum, but I haven’t. Plenty of time for me to have started this program up where I’m at now, but I’m not going to. I’ve wrestled over this time and time again, but I know it my heart that I won’t implement this program again, at least not in the same way. Although it was successful, kids loved it and they were learning great stuff that was transforming their behavior, it cae down to a decision between red and yellow.

If the stats about more than 70% of kids leaving the church after High School are true and that one of the best ways I can prevent that from happening is engaging parents as spiritual leaders in the home, then implementing this successful program of mine doesn’t really matter. It’s a decision between yellow and red and in this case, red wins. I have to take an honest look at what I do and ask myself this question: “Does this program or event help me engage parents as spiritual champions?” If not, then I might need to rethink what I’m doing.

I don’t think my curriculum is dead. I’ll pull it out again one day, but maybe to tweak it for parents to use. Who knows, maybe I’ll just use it for my own kids.

So, what Yellow program do you need to kill?