These kids have been catechized and had Bible verses drilled into them. But they lack good fruit. In some of them, their fruit stinks!
We are in a really good PCA church, and the pastor is actually OPC. We love it, but this is one aspect that we are really struggling with. Any thoughts?
Oy.
I
have run into this. It's one reason I didn't press kids through catechism class (though I teach this class), and it's also one reason my OP church didn't confirm some kids who had doctrinal head knowledge.
But there can be other issues. A soldier isn't really a soldier 'til he's met the enemy. Some kids continue to think "this is easy" as long as they're
protected. Their adherence comes from meeting the tough problems in their real lives: ministering to the poor, befriending the friendless and downright unfriendly, or the "just odd." Or sometimes it really is a doctrinal issue, like confronting people who think "people are basically good", that can lock them into line and discover, "Oh. This is for real."
It's also a possibility that your youth leaders don't have the strength of personality, of social control or of sheer inspiration, to rip the lungs out of a cultural malaise that's set up shop in their youth group. Nobody likes having their kids dislike youth group. But some kids will say things or act certain ways that will make a youth group a spiritual wasteland. They have to be opposed -- and there are right ways of opposing it too. (Some think public opposition is the way to do that -- I don't. Ever.)
It's also possible you may have a problem.
Doctrinal adherence is not Christian faith. If your kids think this, they should not be confirmed by the church. To do so would reintroduce the Halfway Covenant. If your
leadership thinks this, they're not Presbyterian. They may be misled by one of the standard historical errors in Presbyterianism, or they may be trying to arbitrate a Baptist or Lutheran theology with a Presbyterian one. At worst they're defying James. Well, at dead-level worst, they'd be gnostics, but let's assume they haven't got that far.
I've run into this issue in other places, too. It takes some strong discernment to recognize the difference, and some fortitude to exclude people from the Body of Christ on such a basis. It's not the same as looking for maturity, nor is it the same as asking questions. Sometimes you just have to ask the hard questions of the kids, directly. "I've noticed you haven't been to any of the service projects our church is doing. What are you doing with Jesus command to redeem the time in your own life?" "I noticed your impatience a few weeks ago at worship. Are you normally impatient to get out of worship, and why do you think you are?" Catechism class cannot make a person a Christian -- it needs to talk about heart issues, but the conclusions of others have to be their own. And elders have to realize they're not a person's "final exam".