David Kinnaman has written what I suspect will be a much-discussed, perhaps much-debated, book about why it is that young adults are walking out the doors of the church. His book is called You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith. David’s previous book, called unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters, focused on outsiders. This one focuses on insiders — those reared in the church. It offers description of various types of young adults who are walking away from the church.
David discusses three kinds of “dropouts”:
Nomads: those who walk away but still consider themselves Christians. Prodigals: those who no longer consider themselves Christians. Exiles: those who still invested in the Christian faith “but feel stuck (or lost) between culture and the church” (25).
One of his findings is that more are struggling with their experience of the church than their Christian faith. But about 40% of 20somethings are deeply concerned about friends who are abandoning the church.
Kinnaman finds three characteristics of this generation as it dwells in a new technological, social and spiritual reality and these are to be seen as pervasive realities and general realities:
What do you think of his three categories? Do they describe “types” in your experience or church?
Access: facts and knowledge are a click away; authority gets diminished.
Alienation: family’s are less integrated; adulthood is postponed; they are skeptical of institutions.
Authority: there is a profound skepticism of authority. Christianity is not a default setting. The Scripture’s authority is not a default setting. Christianity’s influence on culture has diminished. Awareness of Christian influencers has diminished while other cultural icons has risen.
With this general picture, here are the characteristics of Nomads:
1. They describe themselves as Christians.
2. Involvement in a Christian community is optional.
3. Importance of faith has faded.
4. Most are angry or hostile toward Christianity.
5. Many are spiritual experimentalists.
Prodigals:
1. They feel varying levels of resentment toward Christians and Christianity.
2. They have disavowed returning to the church.
3. They have moved on from Christianity.
4. Their regrets, if they have them, usually center on their parents.
5. They feel as if they have broken out of constraints.
Exiles:
1. Exiles are not inclined toward being separate from “the world.”
2. Skeptical of institutions but are not wholly disengaged from them.
3. Sense God moving “outside the walls of the church.”
4. Not disillusioned with tradition; frustrated with slick or shallow expressions of religion.
5. A mix of concern and optimism for their peers.
6. They have not found faith to be instructive to their calling or gifts.
7. Struggle when Christians question their motives.
I am no longer a young adult – but I am not really sure that Kinnaman’s categories are limited to young adults.
The categories themselves are useful for organizing and thinking through the issues, but they shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Human experience and reasoning is not quite so neatly defined.
This post really resonates though with what I see, and with some of what I’ve experienced.
A much-needed study! His three groups don’t seem to include those for whom Christianity just no longer makes sense intellectually, but who maintain strong relationships with their families and Christian friends. Or are these rarer than my experience would suggest?
I agree with rjs, I don’t think these categories merely apply to young adults. As I was reading the categories I thought of more than a few in my community who fit these criteria.
I’m 36 and I think the Exile category describes me to a “T”. And I know people that look like they might fit into the other 2 categories.
I would love to see a study on why some young adults stay in church, though I haven’t seen such a study. I know many young church-goers who share many of the characteristics of the “dropouts”, and yet they remain connected. Why is that? Are there distinguishing traits, experiences, in either those persons or their churches that allow/compel them to stay connected. Perhaps such a study would provide some answers as to what is missing it for the dropouts.
Just a thought
Have to agree with the others: this does not seem to be age specific.
This post lost me. I don’t understand why we should be interested in this kind of book when we have numerous high-quality offerings from social scientists (e.g. Christian Smith, Arnett, and colleagues). This is stuff that is painstakingly collected and analyzed and has been gone over with a fine-toothed comb.
The Barna data and books are noise. Barna uses lower quality data and uses lower standards for the analysis of their data (this isn’t always their fault … they just don’t have the resources or expertise to better). We have no reason to believe that their qualitative work is any different. Except that they use slick marketing and have personal connections with prominent Christian leaders, I can’t think why we should do anything but yawn when we see their stuff.
What we need are people to take Smith and others’ findings and summarize them in a more accessible form for a broader readership.
The author’s finding that young people are struggling more with their experience of church than with their Christian faith applies to more than just the young. I find that both the 20 somethings as well as my generation (50+) are becoming more and more disillusioned with how we do church; the so called “Sunday morning show.” Many still want to follow the Lord and serve according to their calling, but as far as attending the typical evangelical worship service each Sunday – thanks, but no thanks.
This may apply to more than just younger generations, but the author will stick to the younger generations because that is what he has data for.
I just finished a study where I examined emerging adult (18-29) alumni from the campus based, denominational ministry where I work. I explored the faith experiences of those who had been volunteer leaders within our structure who graduated from college at least 5 years ago, yet who had not reached 30. I am still reading Kinnaman’s book. My findings are similar to his, yet there are some notable differences. I’ll mention a few. All 14 participants in my study sought to actualize their faith post graduation – they wanted it to be applicable to their lives including experiences, relationships, and work. All of the participants had a two or more year period where their involvement in a “local church” was nill or minimal (yet most maintained a deep, abiding faith during this period). However, to say that they did not practice faith in a community is inaccurate. My summery was that they found “church” among like-minded friends and mentors. Friends had the most profound effect on their faith midway through college on. They all operated within a “bubble” after graduation. This bubble could be a tightly bound group that served to protect them from those who were different or a very open group that invited in diversity and expanded faith and worldviews.
All in my study reacted against the negative categorizations of others by the church. The most glaring example was the churches stance against homosexuality (because all knew homosexuals who professed to be Christians). They opted for siding with friendship and relationships over against any doctrinal or theological stance.
Yes, my sample was small, but it is representative of students who have served in leadership in our programming over the past several years. I have continued to explore these matters with our current students. For the most part I feel my conclusions are valid.
In sum, while Kinnaman’s categories can be helpful, I don’t think all emerging adults fit neatly into them. Most in my study would cross the clean boundaries he offers, possessing aspects of each category in their faith profile.
I left Church because where I was raised, it was a waste of time. It taught nothing beyond, “get saved” and “don’t sin”.
I had my faith severely challenged as a young adult, held onto my faith though.
Went ~ 30 years before starting back in a much better Church and haven’t stopped since.
IF a Church is about the business of God beyond infancy, it won’t be boring. BTW, I think we as parents and Churches must teach children at least 3 things after they believe if nothing else to stem the loss of faith problem.
1) Some of the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ resurrection likely were murdered. Tacitus documents the general Neronian persecution well.
2) Josephus discussed Jesus, James His brother and his murder and John Baptist and his murder.
3) 70 AD and the synoptic accounts of it(Mark 13, Luke 21, Matt 24) including specific OT predictions of the utter destruction of Jerusalem/Temple and the dispersion of the Jews due to this judgment is so compelling as to almost be ironclad proof of the validity of Christ’s prophet and Messiah status.
It will stun you if you’ve never compared the details Jesus offered and Josephus’ accounts of 70 AD.
These 3 together give us very compelling, impirical evidence no other faith can possibly have.
This won’t help the boredom or misunderstanding problems, it will help them avoid becoming agnostics or atheists and as such, like many of us, they will eventually return to the fold.
Jason, #7,
What you’re saying is probably true enough, and so Smith and co. should take a cue from scholars like N.T. Wright and Bart Ehrman: translate academic research into a popular form and get a heck of a publisher/marketing team to put it out there.
That being said, even if Barna’s research isn’t as good as others (I already believed that this was the case), I think the categories and characteristics he coined above are nevertheless useful and fairly accurate. I’m less interested in statistics and percentages than I am in a writer who understands what’s happening with people and can weave all of the particulars into a big picture that makes sense; and Kinnaman seems to have that gift.
I wouldn’t use this book for its statistics, but for the framework Kinnaman’s created in which to think about people’s relation to the Church. One book that can do this is more useful to me than a hundred others with tons of great data, but no synthesis in which the data make sense.
~Derek
Patrick,
Actually, the predictions that Jesus makes about the Fall of Jerusalem aren’t very detailed at all- they don’t mention, for example, that the defenders of Jerusalem had to resort to cannibalizing their dead, which is surely a graphic and notable detail. That’s precisely one of the things that convinces me it was a true prophecy, and that the Gospels were written before 70 AD. (See John Robinson’s ‘Redating the New Testament’ for more). Real prophecy tends to be cryptic, vague, and highly symbolic, whereas spurious, after-the-fact ‘prophecy’ is usually more detailed. That’s how we know Jesus’ prophecy was real.
I wouldn’t hang too much on Josephus (although I found it intriguing when I was first investigating Christianity, I don’t think it’s especially important now), and I’d also specify James as a cousin or other kinsman, not a biological ‘brother’ in the modern English sense of the word.
I’m going to add a category.
Abandoned:
1. They feel their lives don’t matter.
2. Confused by the fake smiles they experience in the church.
3. They yearn for honesty.
4. They feel guilty about their level of wealth but also feel guilty for not appreciating their “blessings”.
5. They are numb to their own emotions.
6. They want to do something hard but are afraid of doing it alone.
Derek (12):
Problem is, if Kinnaman has low quality data, why should we listen to him vs. my uncle Bob’s scribblings on a napkin about young adults and church? If Kinnamon’s categories are derived from low quality data, why should we think that his categories are anything but low quality also? In that case, my Uncle Bob’s scribbling may do better, if Kinnamon is being mislead by unreliable data. So what are we left with? …Kinnamon knows how to write in a popular way and has a popular-level publishing platform. But what does this matter if it’s not based on anything but anecdotal observations and little that is generalizeable? Exception: if someone had been teaching/pastoring young adults for decades and compiled their experiences and observations, they probably have something substantive to tell us. Does that apply to Kinnamon?
Have you tried to read Smith’s SOULS IN TRANSITION or SOUL SEARCHING? There is plenty of synthesis for those willing to read. For instance, a big take away in Smith’s work is that parents and adults input in the lives of young adults is pretty much the most important factor in whether young adults will retain their faith and church involvement. Adults think young people ignore them … not true according to Smith’s findings. And young people are influenced by the EXAMPLE of how parents/adults actually live out their faith and value it more than just about anything. What’s difficult to understand about that? And what isn’t incredibly useful and CHALLENGING about that?
Also, the state of the art data and analysis Smith et al. use show that the mass alienation from church implied in Kinnamon’s book UnChristian is dead wrong and misleading.
Jason Lee, what about Kinnamon’s data is flawed? Do you have some empirical evidence to support this? I remember reading through Un-Christian and appreciating the openness with which they discussed the short comings of their questions. It seemed like a reasoned approach to data analysis. It may not be worthy of the academy but Barna tends to be pretty honest about where their data comes from and what methods they use to analyse which gives me confidence that I can take it for what it is worth and accept its shortcomings.
Happy thirty-something Exile here (married to same). Funny that he uses the word exile. Wonder if he has read Michael Frost’s book “Exiles”. It is great. I recommend it highly.
I should mention, Jason Lee, that I’m not looking for a fight. I really want to know what you see and why you think the data is unreliable.
I invite us to pause a moment and honestly lament the exodus of youth (and adults) from the church. Then we can continue to quibble over the categories Kinnamon defines.
“Lord, we mourn the loss in the church’s ability to paint a compelling vision of a life with Jesus worth dying for and, thus, worth living for. May the nomads, prodigals and exiles meet Jesus somewhere and be rivited to his call. Amen.”
My approach to this topic of rethinking is philosophically based. That is you could take an idealistic perspective. Here, these young people are imitating. Or you could look at it realistically. Here, these young people lack training. Or there is the pragmatic aspect. Here they need praxis. Or there is the existential perspective- opposed to thinking about this group as objects that can be measured, tracked, or standardized- they need to confront other’s views to clarify their own.
Speaking from the existential position, it seems that David Hempton’s look at disenchantment is more insightful. I don’t believe it is just artistic personalities that leave church, although I do believe we see the symptoms of these trends in them first. I will restate the symptoms for clarity of issues to be focused on regarding disenchantment- experiential conversion, mysticism, small-group religion, a vitalist concept of nature, a deferred eschatology, and opposition to theological systems. Hempton’s conclusions must be repeated over and over- “an infallible text read with wooden literalism, an instant millenium, a lack of interest in nature, priestly personality cults, and modernist soteriological systems, are not what the early evangelicals had in mind”.
@John W Frye (19)
Have you considered that an exodus from the “church” for some IS a move towards their faith in Jesus? Moving away from the destructive, abusive, broken and adulterated “church” is the most emotionally/spiritually healthy thing some people can do. When I say “church”, I am mostly referring to the Institutional Church (IC). I don’t think the nomads/exiles have thrown the baby out with the bath water. Maybe the prodigals have, but even there I believe they are reachable by the real church. The real church is the people and not all the trappings/hierarchy of the institutional forms. Personally as an exile, I did meet Jesus and was riveted to His call – which took me outside the IC. That is where Jesus hung out when he was here: in the world. If you are not out there with the lost regularly, you cannot make disciples of The Way. I pray that those stuck in the pew every Sunday meet Jesus and follow Him out into the world to love on and disciples the lost.
I find it amusing that the perennial assumption in these types of articles is always that the problems lie on one side (the church) and not at all with those who are leaving.
Yes. I was an exile and have returned. Many friends are prodigals or nomads.
To DLS’s point, some of those in these categories simply don’t want to commit or submit to the Church or Christ. However, many others could be loved, discipled, and helped to grow into fully-engaged Christ followers.
@DLS (22)
This kind of comment reminds of the abject depravity of the church… “Damn the lost if they can’t see their way clear to meet us on our turf and forgive our mistakes.” All the onus is on them. This is sad.
Except that I didn’t say the “all the onus is on them”. I said that these articles like this always start with the opposite presumption, which is silly.
@DLS – Who is reading articles like this? The prodigal? Probably not. This is written for and by the church to take a look at itself. Why would we be looking at the problems of the prodigal? The church is an expert on sin. That teaching is not in short supply.
I’m in my forties and am sick of church. I’m sick of the politics, I’m sick of those who put their agendas above other’s interests, sick of staff who see the congregation as those who need to do their bidding, sick of staff who have incredible character flaws held up as paragons of virtue, sick of those who take Jesus’ teaching seriously regarding giving to the poor and non-violence being viewed as weird and out of the mainstream, sick of being all about the numbers, both in money and attendance, sick of questioning being squashed and sick to my heart that those who have questions are shunned.
The best I can figure to do is pull back, attend, but limit participation and serve Christ in ways outside of the church organization. Right now, I just feel like I’m feeding the beast. I really don’t know what else to do.
I tried to submit this but got the message that it seems a bit spammy. Figures.
JoeyS: Don’t worry, I’m not the fighting type. Several people have pointed out the low standards of the Barna group. As one example, use Google’s site search feature to look through BRE Wright’s very generous and kind criticisms of Barna. You could start with this nice intro to the problems with groups such as Barna: http://brewright.blogspot.com/2008/06/critiquing-research-about-christianity.html
Basically, groups such as Barna are often are not transparent regarding basic facts about their data (e.g., response rates). If their response rates were up to snuff, wouldn’t they be happy to report this? Bad response rates makes the reporting of basic things like sample percentages very problematic. Barna also uses small samples. This means that the confidence intervals around their point estimates must be quite large. They often do not provide us with significance tests (e.g., t-test) so we know whether the differences between two groups could just be considered random.
Also, the wording of questions makes a big difference. Are they transparent about that all the time? Garbage in…garbage out.
I have no empirical data, just my very fallible, subjective experience as a 20-something. Four things come to mind that I think contribute to the reality Kinnaman is trying to address:
Hypocrisy – until we as followers of Jesus can more closely embody His Way, young people are going to continue to be disillusioned with “Do as I say, not as I do.”
A lack of investment – both in the young people themselves and in acts of service to the Church and the local community by older, spiritually mature Christians. We (young adults) need mentors to say “Come follow Jesus along side me.” And those mentors need to recognize that first step might need to take place outside the walls of a church building.
Philosophy – you can love it or hate it, but Post-Modernism has happened. If we, as the Body of Christ, don’t learn to see and hear through the eyes of a generation who has grown up with this way of understanding and making sense of the world, there will continue to be a disconnect with what we are trying to communicate, how they perceive it, and why what we are saying is (or isn’t) important to them.
Humility & Grace – the world is full of lonely, broken people – both inside and outside the Church. Jesus calls us to be a people of reconciliation, offered humbly through grace. None of these things are easy, but as I read the descriptions of Kinnaman’s archetypes, I can’t help but wonder what a big dose of these things might do to change the current trajectory of many in my generation.
Well, I find the categories lacking. And I agree with #8 above.
Where do you put a faithful follower who is tired of the masked, unreal church atmosphere of people who put on a show of outreach and care but never really tackle the tough issues in their church, sermons or ministries? Churches where leadership doesn’t really care for the flock as much as numbers in the pews? I am tired of this. So are many of the people I deal with in our ministry. Tired of churches. Tired of looking for a church and wondering if any exist that do the ministry in a real and honoring way.
And I am way over the 20 something age.
So I would take #1 from Nomads, #1 first half (Christians) from Prodigals, #1, 2, 3, 4 from Exiles, and #2 and 3 from Abandoned. But I would add “Their faith is very important to them and they feel very close to God, just not Christians.”
What category should we give this… disillusioned?
Interesting post. I think the incompleteness of our understanding of the gospel (Scot’s new book), as well as church just something one puts up with, or does as an add on. Both seem problematical to me. Also the thought from Jason Lee of parents really living out the faith, that resonates as well. We all too readily pick up what was passed on to us, and pass it down to the next generation, what we really believe where the rubber hits the road, as to what we profess.
It does seem to me this is a problem across the board in Christendom, and we need to thank God where vitality among youth is found, even if we would challenge some of where they are at.
….sorry about the grammar, and sloppiness in communicating my thought. I need to edit my comments as well. :/
A Person #27:
I stopped attending evangelical/penticostal churches for all the reasons you identify in your post.
I got tired of being told that I should stop “leaning on my own understanding” – which is code for stop thinkin
I got tired of the “leadership” and “vision” meetings that were code for the latest initiative for increasing service attendance.
I got tired of being asked about my thith-contributions – which wasn’t code at all for “give us more money”
When one submit’s to the church, one expects to submit to a church and not a monster. It’s just too bad that too many monsters are out there, calling themselves the church.
Somebody buy #27 a beer!
Maybe he goes into more detail in the book, but the motivations for his characterizations seem to be off.
For example, Exiles:
1. Exiles are not inclined toward being separate from “the world.”
2. Skeptical of institutions but are not wholly disengaged from them.
3. Sense God moving “outside the walls of the church.”
4. Not disillusioned with tradition; frustrated with slick or shallow expressions of religion.
#’s 1 and 4 carry the connotation that this is a self-imposed Exile. In my case, and the case of others, I was actually asked to leave my church over doctrinal issues. I was exiled into a period of looking for an accepting community.
Again, perhaps he fleshes this out more fully in the book, but the connotation of his categories seems to be that these categories are self-imposed.
Zoom out a little bit. As the world moves into the virtual age, we are defining our “collective identity” less by institutional mandate and more by increased peer-to-peer interaction. Core influencers are shifting from local-vertical powers to collectives and shared global-horizontal resonance. We are finding far better information in the cloud than in the local tribe.
We’re being forced to change. Resource depletion is increasingly forcing us away from a consumer-driven culture (measured in GDP) to a culture based on metrics that go beyond mere consumption – new metrics that are not yet commonplace but address deeper and shared human needs and longings (1 Cor 13 comes to mind).
Many I know simply want to be known not as “Christians” but as people who care about the basic needs of others, who do things to help bring those basic elements of life (water, food, clothes, compassion and a reduction of suffering, etc.) to others – with the assurance that, in the process of that work, others will know that the heart of Christ is what drives their work and life, without force-feeding some evangelical identity or religious agenda into the process.
Technology is making the world smaller, yet the population continues to explode, and 1 in every 6 persons goes to bed malnourished, and even more do not have access to basic clean water. Frankly, I think the last thing on our younger generation’s mind is evangelical religion, and the institutional forms that define it. They are inheriting a growing global humanitarian crisis, and they perceive politically-infused religion as part of the problem that got us here.
I suggest that we’re not seeing an exodus of faith. To the contrary, it seems the heart of Jesus is compelling youth to act beyond our failed tribal boundaries. I don’t see younger people leaving “the faith” as much as they are detoxing from tired institutional forms of religion and religious identity.
phil_style
Thanks for your response. The church I attend actually began as a liturgical small staffed church, but has been changing into a generic evangelical mess. No offense to other evangelical churches out there. I’m sure some have better philosophies and adherence of the Christian life than others.
I think what has happened is that current “correct” beliefs trump everything else, including how people are treated. I believe there are many good intentioned, but Jesus seems to be missing from most of the decisions. I have a hard enough time following Jesus without the church putting up so many obstacles. I also am concerned about what my children are learning growing up in such a place.
As someone who has had a few bad experiences with churches, I can feel myself slowly inching towards the “exiles” column. Up until recently, I was in ministry, primarily as a Youth Pastor, but when you make mistakes, churches have a tendency to crucify you, and it burns. I’m stepping away from church ministry for now and getting ready to work towards ministry in a secular environment (chaplaincy). Beyond that, though, I have little desire to even find a church to get involved in.
I have too many thoughts about this, and not nearly enough time.
JohnL
Probably right. I may be wrong but my guess is that 5 in 6 come home from church malnourished.
I think there is a 4th category somewhere of those who simply must focus hard on their education and vocation.
My daughter is 15, and she is absolutely surrounded by a web of churches and church youth groups all doing anything they can to attract her to their event or two of the week. I’ve had to forbid her to attend some youth group activities because she needs to be focused on homework… Messy Games night is not going to get her into the college she wants to get into.
When I challenge her, her response is that it’s church and how can I tell her no on something church? But I can clearly see the effect when studying for a test drops through the crack because of yet another retreat. She is going to have to dial back on church, or she is going to fail at the goals she has set for herself.
The problem is that puts me the parent in direct opposition to churches and youth directors. And guess who has the coolest activities? I am looking for the church to have some sensitivity and respect toward me as a parent and her as a teen with limited time, and not continually be marketing (in the classic sense of the word) themselves.
As another example,we are short on money, my wife is unemployed, and my daughter like any teen is a money pit. Yet I learned she turned down a sizable multi-day babysitting gig in order to go to another church’s church camp because all her friends were going too.
And the people who had that work didn’t call again, because if there’s one thing you need in a babysitter, it’s reliability.
So here again, we have a church winning at their youth metrics, while I’m poorer and my kid thinks she can just walk away from a job responsibility and go to camp for a week or two because it’s church.
Sorry for the vent.
Hector,
They are detailed. There’s a small book written in 1805,
“The Destruction of Jerusalem” by George Holford that juxtaposes Christ’s( and Moses and Isaiah’s) predictions and Josephus’ documentation as well as a couple of other Roman historians about 70 AD.
Things as detailed as digging a moat around Jerusalem were predicted by Christ and documented by Josephus.
In that 40 year era there was an abnormal amount of massive famine across the empire, weird earthquakes, combat between nations and such along with combat details.
Until I read that book, it had never occurred to me how obvious the 70 AD destruction vindicated Christ.
#27, Been there, keep going. If you need a break look for the smallest mainline church you can find. You’ll only run into a few people, and it won’t be the doctrine police.
#37, Been there too. Moving on into small, non-vocation church planting. Would love to talk sometime. If interested, please resond.
# Sigh, 39, 40. It’s par with the course. It’s what we’re paid to do. No programming, no need for a youth pastor. That’s why I’m not one anylonger. I wanted to help parents raise their children spiritually, not do it for them. I wanted them to have lives (and my self too) outside of church with their friends and family. However, the old metric for youth is the number of students, frequency and quality of events. Couldn’t stand it anymore.
I’m an exile in a church for exile’s.
Maybe the most painful words of wisdom I’ve ever received were an encouragement to stop talking about my reasons for leaving church and instead to start quietly being the church.
I’m not suggesting there aren’t abuses, but even in light of those, isn’t loving my neighbor as myself going to cover a multitude of them?
Sometimes the church doesn’t love the unlovable. If we’re part of the church and we won’t love the unloving, then we just joined their ranks.
I agree with RJS that I don’t think these categories are just reserved for young adults. I’d be interested in a study that focused on Boomers and where they fall. Since we’re such a large contingent, I’d venture to say that you’d probably find younger Boomers falling into these categories as well. At the end of the day, I think it’s time for the Church to sit up and take notice and stop sloughing this off as people being “weak” or whatever other descriptor they may use to explain the bleeding.
Sigh, I’m interested in your experience with your teenage daughter. When I was a teenager in church I wish I had been exposed to classical theologians, philosophy and science in “youth group”. This would have had knock-on effects towards my school studies as well. The church is full of professional teachers… where are they when it comes to ensuring that the youth of the church don’t miss out on education?
Once upon a time, the church was really good at this stuff, in fact it was pretty much the best in town (and I’m not talking about bible verses here, I mean subjects like math, geometry, physics etc..) when did the church throw away the education (in a classical sense) of it’s youth, to be replaced by “messy games night”?
instead of debating the use of these categories, i’m going to go in a different direction…
i think these categories sound like a good starting point to make people within the church familiar with some of the feelings and/or attitudes of those who have either left or simply feel left out. as with any scheme of categorization, there are going to be outliers. that’s not the author’s fault; it simply part of categorizing things generally without being bogged down with a million sub-categories.
much like his book “unchristian,” which i really enjoyed, i think this book will go a long way in showing people within the church how they are seen by others…this time by former members of their community.
sure, barna’s research and methodology may not be the best, but the point here (i think) is that there are some similar issues that keep coming up in the journey of people who move away from the church. the church can (and should) learn from that.
one commenter took offense at the idea that it is all the church’s fault (or, at least, that was the impression he or she gets in some of these posts). i don’t think either scot nor the author of this book would say that was the case. i don’t think it’s fair to say such a thing and, thereby, dodge some of the issues.
yes, the church is a flawed institution that makes mistakes. show me an institution that isn’t flawed! but, at the same time, people (individually) are flawed as well. the truth (as it usually is) is somewhere in the middle, although it is relative to each person’s experience. i’m sure you’ll find cases where the church acts extremely cruel and should take much of the blame. i’m sure you’ll also find cases where people are babies and leave the church while whining the whole time. that person should probably take the blame.
all that to say: i think this book can be helpful if you take it for what it is: not a comprehensive, scientific data manual, but a peek at some of the things that are going on with people who have become, in someway or another, disenfranchised by the church.
Prompted by the latest retreat, advertised with a really cool Gen Next website and professional copy selling all the Jesus-tainment to be had, I’m thinking about a letter to our denomination’s newspaper titled “Youth Group, Credit Cards and Alcohol.”
They all use sophisticated marketing techniques to sell their goods, each of them would like to engage 100% of the population, and they’re all a danger to young adults if not used in moderation.
Patrick,
I don’t want to say that you’re wrong, or that the prophecies you see in the text aren’t there. I often see prophetic resonances in scripture or quasi-scriptural books that I don’t think have been widely noted by others. Maybe you’re right.
So I’ll just say this: if Jesus did include elaborate details in his prophecies of Jerusalem’s fall (like digging a moat, and such like) he did it in cryptic enough language that it wouldn’t be clear to most people either before or after the fact. Certainly I’ve never seen any prophetic reference to digging a moat outside the city, nor do I think most early commentators did, though I’d be interested to know where you see a reference. This isn’t surprising, of course: generally the genuine biblical prophecies are cryptic, vague, and veiled, not clear and detailed. This is precisely one of the ways that we can tell genuine prophecies apart from fake, after the fact pseudo-prophecies. (I’d argue that there are good reasons why God usually ensures that prophecy is couched in such vague and cryptic terms; it has to do with His desire to protect human free will. But that’s a sepaate argument).
Sigh, (and phil) I was a youth pastor once, and continue to be as critical of “messy games night” as you are, not to mention all the other slick Youth Ministry marketing out there…however, I also was and continue to be just as concerned with the prevailing cultural attitudes that say get the best grades, get a job, make some money, so you can be successful, if it leaves out discipleship.
I think the key question for both youth pastors and parents is this…”Are my teenagers being discipled into becoming more and more like Jesus?”
The funny thing is, that might be happening for teenagers who involve themselves in your churches youth ministry, and it may also be happening in your family when your child is not going to “all that church stuff”.
Its simply a matter of asking the question of both the youth leaders and the parents.
Respectfully,
ABS
@ ABS,
Absolutely, however, discipleship is fairly subjective in the eyes of parents and boards.
Hector,
Most of the prophetic referents would be considered “broad/generic” to us now, consider it’s 30 AD and you are a member of the incomparable “ROMAN EMPIRE” and a Jew in 30 AD Jerusalem and you assume Yahweh wants you to run off these pagans and is supporting this movement.
“Great famines, earthquakes, people losing the normal humanity/love we have( i.e. mothers eating their babies for example, Josephus records this), various false Messiahs including one from the “inner rooms”, one from “the wilderness”( both recorded by Josephus), nation warring against nation( happened immediately after Nero’s suicide).
That little book above, it should be in every Church, IMO.
I am fortunate to live near a fairly big city (Atlanta), so am fortunate to have more churches to try. I was somewhat dissatisfied with church but felt it important to still be part of one. When my husband suggested trying a church our son told us about, I was resistant but went along. Great decision. What grace to find such authenticity! One of the best parts is the contemplative worship with musicians who are NOT trying to generate excitement. I am in my fifties. Our generation became disenchanted with the empty formality and meaningless traditions we associated with church and found a more “accessible God” in our informal, spontaneous churches. However, we threw the baby out with the bathwater. We ignored meaningful tradition and substituted “excitement,” some of is real but much of it manufactured.
My sense of young adults today is that they want authenticity and decidedly reject, even abhor, anything else. Good for them.
I do implore all of you, though, to not give up on church altogether. Even if it is done wrong so much of the time, it is important. Church doesn’t have to look like what you’ve already seen. A friend told me of a church that spontaneously sprung up in a homeless community in the woods near where he lives that is amazing.