Dear Friends in Christ

^“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

“When am I ever gonna use this?” Does that sound familiar to any of you who struggled with math in high school or struggled to help your child with math? As the parent of an 8^th grader who doesn’t appreciate math, I constantly find myself in search of practical examples why math is important. I love fractions. It’s so easy – you have a whole and you need to understand a portion of the whole. You can use pizza, groups of friends, hours on a clock. It’s very practical.

1/84 is not a large part of anything. It’s a miniscule slice of pizza. But it’s an important fraction for us to think about as we consider the ongoing evolution of the church.

That fraction is the amount of programming time the “church” spends, on average, with an “active” young person each week. We get 1/84 of their total time; about 1.2%. But, In this case, saying “we are the 1%,” isn’t a great thing. That’s roughly 1.5 hours in a 168-hour week. Yet, we spend nearly all of our time trying to figure out how to make that 1/84 better. We try better curriculum. We try splashier communication. We try building a better building or friendlier space.

Meanwhile, there are over 166 hours (83/84) where people are confronted with transformational faithful decisions, cultural challenges and difficult family dynamics.

The great opportunity is to be a more relevant resource to people in the 83/84 of their lives. The future of faith formation is to create more opportunities for families to be in intentional conversation TOGETHER. The future of the church is to spend more time planning for and thinking about when families are not in the building.

In February and March we will carve out time for  these kind of courageous, hopeful conversations. We can use this springtime of the spirit during Lent as an opportunity to share our passion, hopes and dreams about the evolution of  youth and family ministry. Stay tuned for more details about the “Youth and Family Focus Groups.” I look forward to doing some math with you!

Peace and Promise,

Pete Erickson