Rediscovering spiritual identity means creating new space for our children's generation and worshiping God with them together.

Jacob's story in Genesis shows that he made the best choices and efforts so that his children would not be spiritually alienated from worshiping God. Jacob helped his children enter into a covenant relationship with God. The covenant relationship means making a covenant with God and hold God's promise, "I AM your God; you are my children."

As a Christian parent or grandparent, have you ever been concerned about the future life of your children or grandchildren? How much time and energy do you think you have invested in your children's life? I'm not just talking about their financial and physical well-being, but I'm talking about their spiritual well-being too.

Danger of Isolation

Psychologists talk about the danger of isolation. Especially for older adults, feeling of loneliness, which is an absence of social contact, can lead them to a higher risk for many physical and mental conditions, such as depression, anxiety, heart disease, etc.

Some people feel lonely because of their social isolation, while others may feel lonely even when they are with people. We call it solitude in a crowd.

Lack of belonging is another form of social isolation in which people feel lonely regardless of the amount of social contact they have. “Depression, anxiety, and feelings of hopelessness are typical mental health problems associated with a lack of belonging.” In particular, many young people struggle with it. Psychologists say social isolation is a silent killer.

However, today, I'm not going to talk about the dangers of social isolation but will talk about the dangers of spiritual isolation from places to worship God. Spiritual isolation is a dangerous place to be. It’s where Satan wants us to be.

David Kinnamanm

You Lost Me is the title of David Kinnaman’s book. In his book, he talks about the challenges of the faith journeys of a younger generation who grew up in the Church but dropped out and disengaged from the Church. Kinnaman describes that there are three different types of dropouts.

1. The first type is “Exiles who are still invested in their faith but feel stuck or lost between culture and the church.”
2. Another group of people is “nomads who walk away from church engagement but still consider themselves Christians.”
3. The last group is “Prodigals who lose their faith and describe themselves as no longer Christian.”

Spiritual isolation is a silent killer of their spiritual vitality; eventually, some of them could separate from God and lose their salvation. These are typical spiritual symptoms that appear when a Christian is spiritually isolated from a place of worshiping God.

It is the situation that many churches are facing now! It is not other people’s story, but it is the story of Our children and grandchildren’s generation. When I went to the annual conference of the United Methodist Church, I met many faithful and devoted Christians concerned about their Church's future. Many people say that their church is getting old and young people do not attend and engage in their Church. When they finish the conversation, they always add one more sentence, “I do not know what to do about it.” They know the problem for their Church but don’t know how to fix it.

Today's Scripture tells the story of Jacob's experience of the danger of spiritual isolation for his children and how Jacob worked to help his children overcome the danger of spiritual isolation and redirect them to rediscover their spiritual identity.

Jacob’s personality

Jacob was a person who focused on his own benefits. He was a very self-centered person. When Jacob decided to come to his homeland, God wanted him to go and settle in Bethel, the land of the promise of God, but Jacob settled in Shechem instead. Jacob believed people in the city of Shechem would protect him from his brother Esau. So, Jacob set up an altar there and called it El Elohe Israel, which means “the mighty God is the God of Israel. Israel was Jacob’s new name.

He built an altar to worship God for himself but not for his children. It was a good choice for him but not for his children. Because Jacob's children had not yet experienced a covenantal relationship with God, they could not have their own altar to worship God yet. His children could not call God the God of their God, so they called God the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Danger of isolation

In Genesis 34, when Jacob didn’t go to Bethel but settled in Shechem, many bad things happened to him and his children. The first one was with his daughter Dinah. She went out to see some festive entertainment and associated with the Shechemite women. A man kidnapped her and humiliated her. The second thing was that Jacob’s two sons made a massacre of people, and his other sons looted the town. Jacob could not control their anger issue. It was out of control. They did what they wanted to do.

When Jacob faced many difficulties with the people around in Shechem because of his children's misbehavior, “God said to Jacob, ‘Go up to Bethel.’ The land I give you, and I also will give it to your children.” When Jacob came up and built an altar there and named it El Bethel, which was “the house of God for everyone.” Finally, when Jacob and his children came back to Bethel, God appeared to Jacob and blessed Jacob and also for his children.

When Jacob left the place where there was only an altar for himself and came to Bethel and built an altar for his children to worship God, his children finally made a covenant relationship with God.

Spiritual Insights

The story of Jacob provides several spiritual insights on how to help our children’s generation love God, serve others, and feel deeply rooted in Christ and connected in the place of worship to God.

The first one is. We try not only to maintain the place of worship and its worship environment for our own spiritual benefit but also to provide our church for our children’s generation. For example, some churches are complaining because of the contemporary music in their worship service. People easily say that “I don’t like that kind of music.” Think about it! Your children's generation may like it and feel God's presence through the music.

If you are a grandparent or parent, you should think about whether our church is a good church that you can pass on to your children. If we do not prepare the church for the next generation, they may lack a sense of belonging because they feel they are in their grandparents' or parents' church. It can cause them to experience spiritual isolation.

Some parents believe that the children will return to their faith when the time has come. I hope it will be, but they could have a spiritual danger when they allow a long-term spiritual vacuum in their lives.

Conclusion

I believe that everyone is familiar with the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. The main problem with this parable is that the prodigal son suffered a great deal of spiritual and physical suffering because of his isolation from his father's guidance and protection. This is the danger of spiritual isolation.

The church should be a spiritual home to return to for the next generation struggling between their jobs and faith, for those who walk away from church engagement, and those who lose their faith and describe themselves as no longer Christian.

Carleton United Methodist Church should be the place of Bethel, which is the house of God and the gate of heaven for our children’s generation. They will come and meet Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and the life.

01.22.2023 Pastor Cloud Poy

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