Refining_LG_FOC

I’ve been thinking a lot about this very thing lately. At my church we use 252 Basics and My First Look. It’s great curriculum. However, I do think that every church needs to evaluate their own unique situation, determine their target and evaluate what message needs to be presented. Obviously, there are central biblical truths that need to be communicated in every church, but not all churches are the same and neither is the demographic of the people they’re trying to reach.

Here’s what I’ve been wrestling through the last few months. In George Barna’s book Revolutionary Parenting, he defines a biblical worldview.

A biblical worldview, as defined by the Barna study, is believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is completely accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic; a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today.

In his book he provides further clarification of what the life of a spiritual champion looks like which includes this worldview and specific behaviors.

So as I think about the concept of refining the message, I’m thinking about what do I specifically need to present over the context of 18 years to produce spiritual champions? It looks like regardless of what curriculum I use, supplemental material is needed. Obviously we’ve learned that parental leadership is the only way we’ll pull this off, but in most churches if parents get engaged, it’s using material that ties into what the kids are learning on the weekends, which would affect the message we present on Sundays.

Any thoughts?