Photo by Virooshan Theva

Today, there are approximately 380,000 churches in the United States with an average church size of about 65 members. And in a nation like the United States, where success is largely defined by size, money, and influence, this can often be discouraging to small congregations. They can wrestle with feelings of inadequacies, wondering to themselves, ‘What is wrong with us?’ ‘Is something wrong with us?’ ‘Are we not friendly?’ ‘Is God not pleased with us?’
 
The same can be said of pastors who shepherd small churches. They look around at the landscape of churches and everywhere they see large, bustling, and bursting churches filled with people who are loving God, growing in their faith, and making an impact on the world for the glory of God, and they feel small. They wonder to themselves, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ ‘What am I missing?’ ‘Should I be doing something else?’ ‘Did God not really call me into pastoral ministry?’ 

Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash
In the news this morning, James and Jennifer Crumbly are being sentenced to 10-15 years for the deadly school shooting their son committed back in November 2021, killing four students and seriously injuring seven others. This, of course, is a historic case, as this is the first time parents have been held responsible for the actions of their child. The Crumbly’s are accused of ignoring serious signs of desperation from their son. The prosecution claims that their son’s deadly actions could have been prevented had James and Jennifer paid attention to the warning signs and gotten their son the help he needed. They were a pro-gun family who were known for taking their son to the shooting range and buying him a 9mm handgun as a Christmas gift, yet at the same time the parents had been made aware that their son had been writing disturbing notes to himself, saying things like, “Help me,” “Blood everywhere,” “My life is useless.” Here was a boy who was clearly lonely, sad, and depressed.  These notes were discovered by school officials and made known to Crumbly’s, which they ignored. Then, in a separate story this morning, a lawyer and his wife were shot dead in Las Vegas during a custody battle with the child’s father, Joe Houston, who is also an attorney. Houston was the one who shot and killed Dennis and Ashley Prince, who have a six-month old baby, and then turned the gun on himself.

Photo by Larm Rmah on Unsplash
Recently, I came across an article in World Magazine where the author addresses the issue of our current generation not wanting to have children or being concerned about having children. Quoting another source, the author writes about how millennials view parenting as something that “will require them to sacrifice everything that brings them pleasure.” With such a negative and erroneous view of parenting, it is no wonder the self-described acronym “DINK” is becoming more appealing on social media (Dual Income, No Kids). The author writes of how many DINKs on social media tout the benefits of not having children, such as “lazy Saturday mornings, regular travel, dinners out, and restful nights of sleep…” 
 
Sadly, in a separate article published in Christianity Today, the author notes that “the birth rate in the United States is declining. It’s often assumed this decline represents our waning desire for children, but researchers from the University of North Carolina and The Ohio State University disagree. Their data indicates that Americans between the ages of 20–24 want as many children as desired historically. However, it does seem people today are putting off the task of raising children—and as they do, the ideal number of children shrinks.” But why is this happening, particularly among Evangelicals, and is it biblical? To be sure, there are a variety of reasons millennials and, among them, Evangelicals are postponing having children, having fewer children, and (in some cases) choosing not to have children at all. The author later posits that the “anxieties about parenthood today are real: economic uncertainties, ecological crisis, fears of inadequacy for such a consequential task. Whether evangelicals have shared these fears isn’t clear, but in recent years, evangelicals have joined the broader culture in having fewer children and having them later.”