History shows an inverse impact on the presence and place of Christianity with Academia.

As a nation… as a world, so the analysis goes, the more educated a people become, the less they need Jesus and the trappings of the simple faith ascribed to by others. Therefore, church participation declines, evangelism wanes, and the world system gains power and presence.

While that is certainly one conclusion that could be drawn, and has been drawn, it is not correct.

For Christ followers, gaining academic knowledge is not the source of our personal and organizational decline. Rather, it is the absence of experiential knowledge, synthesizing the truth of Christ in the very core of our beings. One does not have to eliminate experiential knowledge from the discipleship process. But we do. We substitute experiential discipleship with academic studies and social expression for our own benefit, our own growth, our own holiness. After all, what could please God more than each of us being more holy? And after we do all that, week in and week out, there is no time for anything else. And so we measure how effective we are at making disciples by measuring what we are doing and ignoring what we should be doing.

We have an ever burgeoning supply of academic resources and spokespersons that add weight to the proposition that the academic disciplines and the academic process are the path to mature discipleship. In fact, these disciplines are so good and necessary, we have little time for such experiential pursuits. In fact, they are so good and necessary, there are members and leaders in churches that believe there must be a certain level of academic maturity in place before any real experiential, aka “called”, ministry should be attempted. To be clear, no one is really calling these disciplines “academic”, but they are. And I am not trying to say these are things that are bad, as if this were a simple duality. What I am saying is that these are academic, not experiential – the kind of life change in the core of your being experiential.

I can hear David telling Solomon, “Through all of the years with my Lord, when I have been faithful and when I have sinned, when He has led and I have followed and failed to follow; I have taken all this to heart (see that word in this context?) all that he has shown me, all that He has done for me and with me and through me, and I have hidden these truths deeply within the core of my being.”

Or do we hear him telling Solomon, “I have memorized Genesis and Exodus, but I’m still working on Deuteronomy…”?

Was David advocating for a learned and practiced discipline, or was he expressing the truth of a life long lived in the presence and grace of the one who called him, led him, empowered him, protected him, and forgave him in his service and obedience in a world that did not know his God?

An Implication for Children

Unfortunately, there are programs and emphases that have existed for decades that substitute academic knowledge for experiential knowledge. And, as it pertains to salvation, many tragically pointing at children by well-meaning adults… in a hurry… to protect their children from the consequences of sin not yet understood.

Please stop rushing your children into salvation. Please stop telling them they are saved because they can recite memorized passages of scripture. Please stop telling them they are saved because they have memorized the socialized key words and phrases that you value as evidence of salvation.

Not Any Answer Will Do

Rather, ask them to explain to you what it means that they have faith in Jesus. And if their answer is only cute, but not sufficient, let them know that God loves them and is working in their lives.

Ask them instead, how Jesus being Lord of their life has changed their responses to their parents and siblings. If their answer is rehearsed, to agree with what you’ve already told them it should be like, then let them know that God loves them and is working in their lives.

Ask them when and how they repented. What does that mean to them?

Here’s a hint: if the child is too young to understand Dad jokes, they are too young to understand the gospel. Any effort to coach someone into salvation that is too young to comprehend it’s meaning may as well open a millstone factory. Any effort to dumb down scripture and redefine these terms are doing just the same (e.g., confession and repentance are not the same thing).

We have the joy of hosting our 4 Indiana grandkids 2 – 3 weekends a month. My primary job other the Chaos Control (or Contributor) is Saturday morning breakfast.

One Saturday, when Jubilee, around 7 years old, and Mercy at 3 years old were the only two that were awake while I was fixing the pancakes. Jubilee was on the sofa in the living room, reading one of her books. In our open living space, I could easily see and hear her from the kitchen. As it turns out, she could also hear us. Mercy was full of questions, more questions than anyone without coffee should have to answer before 7:30 in the morning. Standing up in a chair on the far side of the kitchen island, all of the questions began with “Why”….

And then the sequence turned to the point all Dads (and Grandads) hope for. It went something like this.

Why did you get a tissue? (I immediately knew where this was going).

Because I needed to blow my nose.

Why did you blow your nose?

Because I thought it was funny, but it snot.

And then, simultaneously both girls responded.

Jubilee, still looking at her book, giggled loud enough to make any master of the Dad joke proud.

Mercy, in her regular defiant way, said…

No, it’s not! – emphasizing every word.

Jubilee giggled again.

Cute! But sufficient? For Jubilee, this was evidence enough for me to know that her ability to understand the gospel was growing. But for Mercy, it was also evidence. Evidence that while she could say the words, she did not yet possess the ability to comprehend lordship and repentance, much less faith.

The problem is, when we declare children saved and baptize them when they cannot comprehend repentance, we steal from them the opportunity to accept Christ without the guilt of the life lived as a lie. The life lived as a lie leads anyone to hide it, to protect it, to deny the truth. Millstone.

As years pass, there is constant reinforcement that it is normal to be saved and baptized as a young child. But these children, for decades, have grown up in the church. They either leave the church at some point or some even lead the church at some point. It is not unheard of that a deacon, elder, or pastor receives salvation after years of serving in such roles empowered by the millstone of “confirmed” childhood conversion and the longstanding life of hiding the lie. This is exactly the picture of “wheat and weeds” – Matt 13:36-43.

Here is a common refrain.

I got saved when I was (pick an age: 5, 6, 7….), but:

The scripture talks about the faith of a child… that we should accept Jesus with the faith of a child. But the Bible also talks about Lordship and Repentance. It talks a lot about Lordship and Repentance, in fact, it was the message given to John (Matthew 3) to prepare the way of the Lord’s coming. Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand! Jesus made this part of his constant messaging from the very beginning of his ministry. Matthew 4:17: “From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”

Imagine that the door to heaven is a safe. If you turn the dial and get the combination right, you get to pass from this place to His place.

I would say that faith is the easiest thing for a child to have. It costs nothing. It makes sense. Having faith in the Lord Jesus is childlike at its core. Turn the dial right to Faith…Tumbler 1… click!

Lordship is a bit more difficult. Not many children of 5, 6, or 7 can, with adequate comprehension, make the commitment to submission to King Jesus. They can say the words, but this costs something more than learned phrases. You never hear anyone in scripture advising childlike Lordship. The price for this is the release of personal preference and desire. They can say the words, but is it only to mimic and please their parents, pastor, or class leader rather the Jesus himself? Are they turning the dial to Service or Attendance or Scripture Memory? All of these things can feel like lordship if they are doing something that they’ve been told is pleasing to the Lord. But it is not the same thing as making him the forever Lord of their life.

Repentance is the most difficult of all. One has to know they have a life to give up. One has to know who they are so that they can choose to become whom Christ wants them to be, rather than the life they have chosen for themselves. There is no such thing as childlike repentance.

In the examples of the common refrain above, what is happening in the lives of our children is that the church introduces them to a God who loves them. Faith is likely the first tumbler to genuinely fall. Over a period of days, months, and even years, the second tumbler – Lordship – falls. Living with godly parents, submitting (willingly) to their leadership, rules, and demands gives experiential knowledge to what this means.

But it may be years more – 16, 18, 22 years or more – before that third tumbler falls, if it ever does. That place and time where the experience of life helps the one who is submissive to the Lord’s leadership, because of the faith they have in him leads them to repentance – the choice to turn from their own life’s direction and accept fully his life’s direction for them, no matter the cost, no matter the call.

That is the moment of salvation.

An Implication for The Church

We like to think that because Faith exists, so must Lordship and Repentance. We accept the testimony of Faith as sufficient, but it is not. I have asked hundreds of adults over the years about their salvation. I describe faith and asked them to describe to me when they first had faith in the Lord Jesus, and they can tell me. I describe Lordship and ask them when He truly became their Lord, and they can tell me. I describe repentance and ask them when they truly repented. Overwhelmingly I get two responses.

For so many, that third tumbler has never fallen. Their salvation was confirmed for them as children, reinforced by baptism when the only tumbler that had clicked was Faith, and perhaps Lordship. They like and live in the church culture. Living the Jesus way has advantages even if you’re not a repentant believer. But for them, the third tumbler has never fallen. They have never repented. They are not saved.

And herein lies a substantive difference between academic and experiential discipleship. Academic discipleship leads us to a place of personal growth, as measured against the expectations of those who lead us this way. This is the “all that He has done for me” kind of discipleship. It is the pursuit of personal holiness through personal growth through academic means. But even those without Christ can follow an academic path.

The experiential disciple gives his or her life away. The serve the risen King outside the walls of the church (and inside). They recognize, more and more, as they grow that not only does the Lord love them as friends, but in that context, He has shared everything with them about His Father’s business… which is now their business, too. The lost are more important that the saved. If you disagree, perhaps you’ve never been that one lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7).

Herein is the reason why many pastors believe that a large percentage of their church members are actually not saved at all. Herein is why some staff members, deacons, elders, and leaders of ministry are not saved at all. Here is why you may be struggling with the vagueness and emptiness of your life with Christ.

Children that were academically “saved” by those in a hurry to help keep them from experiencing the consequences of sin grow up. They’ve been growing up for decades. They are now making the decisions. They are now leading. Look at your church. Look at yourself. How’s that going for you and your church? If all you know is academic discipleship, you lead and expect academic discipleship.

But the experiential discipleship, the kind of training Jesus did with the Twelve, that discipleship resulted in them “taking to heart” all that He did with them and through them. This kind of discipleship turned the world upside down. These disciples did not focus on what Christ had done for them. I’m not saying they don’t realize and rejoice in that, just that His call was now ahead of them, their future secure. His work and presence in their lives provided motivation to share “all that He wants to do for you” with the rest of the world. Am I the only one that has noticed that the world is now turning downside up?

I was in what became a heated debate (yes, I brought some of the heat) some years ago that strikes right at the heart of this matter. The church staff (I was not a staff member) had gathered with a few interested members (I was interested) to discuss and develop a more significant evangelism ministry. One staff member insisted that our church needed to be healthy before we pursued any kind of evangelism ministry. “Health for ourselves” vs “Salvation for others” was the real debate. I insisted that health would never be ours unless we pursued salvation for others. The net result was that it was not pursued. For 30 years, neighbors were never reached, though the church property was nestled in the middle of a sea of houses. The larger community was not reached. Evangelism was occasionally taught out of books by people who had never led someone to Christ. And in the 31st year of the pursuit of personal growth, non-existent experiential discipleship, and unhealth, the church closed.

After just one or two generations of the academic approach, there are few to no leaders in place to even expect, much less plan and lead, experiential discipleship. If there is no one leading that has seen or done ministry in the wild, the abundance of academic process tools will fill the void. They are replicated from church to church, because they “work”, although that word can have many different meanings. It is just too easy to buy the next book or teach the next lesson in the curriculum than it is to provide life changing, world changing, upside down experience that results in life change for others and core deep, sold out, synthesized knowledge of the One who died in our place.

Holiness springs from the bowels… the heart, not the head. It takes time. And it’s greatest deployment is in a life long lived in the presence and grace of the one who calls us, leads us, empowers us, protects us, and forgives us in our service and obedience to change the world that does not know our God.